
Class.l Flf \ ^?^ 
Book__ ^c__ 



COHfRIGHT DEPOSm 



MODERN ESSAYS 
AND STORIES 



MODERN ESSAYS 
AND STORIES 

A BOOK TO AWAKEN APPRECIATION OF 
MODERN PROSE, AND TO DEVELOP 
ABILITY AND ORIGINALITY IN WRITING 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION. NOTES, SUGGESTIVE 
QUESTIONS, SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION, DI- 
RECTIONS FOR WRITING, AND ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

BY 

FREDERICK HOUK LAW, Ph.D. 

Head of the Department of English in the Stuyvesant High School, 
New York City, Editor of Modern Short Stories, etc. 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO, 

1922 






Copyright, 1923, by 
The Century Co. 



^PR 29 1922 

Printed in U. S. A. 

>t ... k / 



'o- 



Cq» PREFACE 

In all schools pupils are expected to write "essays" but, 
curiously enough, essay-reading and essay-writing are taught 
but little. In spite of that neglect, the essay is so altogether 
natural and spontaneous in spirit, so intensely personal in 
expression, and so demanding of excellence of prose style, that 
it is the form, par excellence, for consideration in school if 
teachers are to show pupils much concerning the art of writing 
well. The essay is to prose what the lyric is to poetry — com- 
plete, genuine and beautiful self-expression, or better still, 
self-revelation. 

Most of the writing done in schools is straightforward nar- 
ration of events, without much, if any, attempt to show per- 
sonal reactions on those events — mere diary-like accounts, at 
best; mechanical descriptions that aim to present exterior 
appearance without attempting to reveal inner meanings or 
to show awakened emotions ; and stereotyped explanations and 
arguments drawn, for the most part, from books of reference 
or from slight observation. 

Beyond all this mechanical work lies a field of throbbing 
personal life, of joyous reactions on all the myriads of 
interests that lie close at hand, of meditations on the wonders 
of plant and animal life, of humorous or philosophic comments 
on human nature, and of all manner of vague dreams and 
aspirations aroused by 

' ' Such sights as youthful poets dream 
On summer eves by haunted stream. ' ' 

Without the slightest question, it is the duty of the school, 
and of the teacher in particular, to lead pupils to appreciate 
honesty and originality in unapplied, unpragmatic self-expres- 
sion, and to show pupils how they themselves may gain the 



Vi PEEFACE 

very real pleasure of putting down on paper permanent 
records of their own intimate thinking. 

Joseph Addison's The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers and 
Washington Irving 's Sketch Book have for many years made 
valiant but unsuccessful efforts to fill the places that should 
be filled by more modern representatives of the essay. 
Macaulay's Essay on Johnson is a biographical article for an 
encyclopedia ; his essays on Clive and on Hastings are polem- 
ics; and Carlyle's Essay on Burns is a critical disquisition. 
With the exception of The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, all 
these so-called essays are of considerable length and are un- 
fitted to serve as the best examples of the essay form; — for 
the essay, like the lyric, demands brevity : it is, after all, only 
a quick flash of self-revelation, — not a sustained effort. 

Then again, who would wish to learn to write like Addison, 
like Washington Irving, like Macaulay, or like Carlyle ! Those 
great writers couched their thoughts in the language-fashions 
of their days, just as they clothed their bodies in the gar- 
ments of their times. To imitate either their style of ex- 
pression or their costumes would be to make one's self ridicu- 
lous, or to take part in a species of masquerade. 

The extremely Latinized vocabulary of 1711, or the resonant 
periods and marked antitheses of 1850, are as old-fashioned 
to-day as are the once highly respected periwigs, great-coats 
and silver shoe buckles of the past. 

The thoughts of yesterday are not the thoughts of to-day. 
There is, in serious reality, such a thing as "an old-fashioned 
point of view. ' ' With all due reverence for the past, the best 
teachers of to-day believe that it is just as necessary for 
students to use present-day methods of expression and to 
cultivate present-day interests as it is to take advantage of 
the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, and 
the thousand other mechanical contrivances that aid life to- 
day, but which were unknown in 1711 or in 1850. 

The type of essay that should be studied in school should 
concern modern interests ; represent the modem point of view ; 
discuss subjects in which young students are interested; be 
expressed in present-day language and, in general, should set 



PREFACE vii 

forward an example that pupils may directly and successfully 
imitate. 

In order to do all this to the best advantage the essays 
chosen for study should be exceedingly short. To a young 
student essays of any considerable length, unless the subject 
matter is of unusually intensive interest, present insuperable 
difficulties. Short essays, on the other hand, appear to him 
exactly what they are,— charmingly delightful expressions of 
personal opinion. 

The essays in this book, instead of telling about coffee 
houses or stage coaches, Scotch peasants or literary circles in 
London or Edinborough, tell about such subjects as Christmas 
crowds, church bells, walking, dogs, the wind, children, the 
streets of New York, school experiences, and various modern 
ideals in work, in literature, and in life. Most of the essays 
are exceedingly short, only one or two being more than a few 
pages in length. 

The essays here given represent various types, including 
not only the chatty, familiar essay but also informational 
essays, critical essays, biographical essays, story essays, and 
one or two examples of highly poetic prose. 

An informal introduction, paving the way to a sympathetic 
understanding, precedes every essay. Notes below the pages 
of text explain immediately all the literary or historical 
allusions with which a young reader might not be familiar, 
their close position to the text making it unnecessary for a 
student to hunt for an explanation. 

Suggestive questions given immediately after every essay 
make it possible for the teacher to assign lessons quickly ; they 
also enable the student to study by himself and to feel assured 
that he will not miss any important point. 

Twenty subjects, suitable as subjects for essays to be 
written by the student in direct imitation of the essay that 
immediately precedes them, follow every selection. In addi- 
tion to this great number of appropriate modern subjects, 
more than 500 in number, on which young students can ex- 
press their real selves, there are given, in connection with 
every list of subjects, directions for writing, — such as a 



viii PEEFACE 

teacher might give a class when assigning written work. 
The subject-lists and the directions for writing give the 
teacher a remarkable opportunity to stimulate a class as 
never before; to awaken a spirit of genuine self-expression; 
and to teach English composition in a way that he can not 
possibly do through the medium of any of our present-day 
rhetorics. 

For the advantage of those teachers who wish to combine 
the teaching of the essay and of the short story, and who 
may not have at hand any suitable collection of short stories, 
the book includes not only introductory material concerning 
the nature of the short story and the development of the 
short story form, but also a series of stories of unusual 
interest for young readers, so chosen and so arranged that 
they represent the development of the short story through 
the legendary tale, the historical story, and the romantic 
story of adventure, to the story of realism and of character. 
In every case the story chosen is one that any student will 
enjoy and will understand immediately, as well as one that he 
can imitate both with pleasure and with success. 

Introductions, foot notes, suggestive questions, subjects for 
written imitation, and directions for writing, follow every 
story. 

If the book is used both as a means of awakening literary 
appreciation and developing honesty, originality, and power 
in written self-expression it will give pleasure to teachers and 
students alike. 



INTRODUCTION 



THE WRITING OF ESSAYS 

"The plowman, near at hand, 
Whistles o'er the furrowed land. 
And the milkmaid singeth blithe ..." 

Why? Simply because they are happy; because they are 
healthy and vigorous, and at work; because they are doing 
something that interests them ; because their hearty enjoyment 
in life must express itself in some other way than in work 
alone: in fact, they whistle and sing just for the doing of it, — 
not that they wish any other person to hear them, and not 
that they wish to teach anything to anyone. Their whistling 
and singing are spontaneous, and for the sake of expression 
alone. 

Many of the best English essays were written just for the 
joy of self-expression. Serious workers in life, in their leisure 
moments, have let their pens move, as it were, automatically, 
in a sort of frank and full expression somewhat akin to the 
plowman's whistling and the milkmaid's singing. 

Certainly in that joyous spirit Michel de Montaigne, in 
the sixteenth century, wrote the delightfully familiar essays 
that have charmed readers for over three hundred years, and 
that established the essay as a literary type. In a like vein, 
frankly and personally, Charles Lamb, who died in the first 
half of the nineteenth century, wrote intimate confessions 
of his thoughts, — ^his memories of schooldays and of early 
companionships and familiar places, — writing with all the 
warmth and color of affectionate regard. Happily, and be- 
cause he was glad to be alive, Robert Louis Stevenson, almost 
in our own days, wrote of his love of the good outdoor world 
with its brooks and trees and stars, of his love of books and 



X INTEODUCTION 

high thought, and his admiration of a manly attitude toward 
life. 

For such people \vriting for the sake of expression was just 
as pure joy as the plowman's whistling and the milkmaid's 
singing. 

Ordinary people write at least the beginnings of essays 
when they write letters, — not business letters in which they 
order yards of cloth, or complain that goods have not been 
delivered, — not letters that convey any of the business of life, 
— but rambling, gossipy, self-revealing letters, so illuminated 
with personality that they carry the very spirit of the writers. 

Everyone, at times, talks or writes in a gossipy way of the 
things that interest him. He likes to escape from the world of 
daily tasks, of orders, directions, explanations and arguments, 
and to talk or write almost without purpose and just for the 
sake of saying something. In that sense everyone is a natural 
essayist. 

The true essayist, like the pleasant conversationalist, ex- 
presses himself because it gives him pleasure. Out of his 
rich experience and wide observation he speaks wisely and 
kindly. He has no one story to tell and no one picture 
to present. He follows no rules and he aims at no very 
serious purpose. He does not desire to instruct nor to con- 
vince. Like the conversationalist, he is ready to leave some 
things half-said and to emphasize some subjects, not because 
it is logical to do so but because he happens to like them. He 
is ready at any moment to tell an anecdote, to introduce humor 
or pathos, or to describe a scene or a person — if so doing fits 
his mood. In general, the true essayist is like the musician 
who improvises : he 

"Lets his fingers wander as they list, 
And builds a bridge from dreamland." 

Of all possible kinds of prose writing, the essay, therefore, 
gives the greatest freedom. The essayist may reveal himself 
completely and in any manner that he pleases. He may tell 
of his delight in wandering by mountain streams, or in min- 
gling with the crowds in city streets; he may tell of his 
thoughts as he meditated by ancient buildings or in the solemn 



INTEODTJCTION xi 

half -darkness of age-old churches; he may dream of a long-- 
gone childhood or look ahead into a roseate future; he may 
talk of people whom he has known, of books that he has read, 
or of the ideals of life. Any subject is his, and any method of 
treatment is his, — just so long as his first thought is the frank 
and full expression of himself. 

To write an essay, — even though it be only a paragraph, — 
is to gain the pleasure of putting at least a little of one 's real 
self down on paper — just because to do so is pleasure. 

II 
THE NATURE OP THE ESSAY 

The essay, then, instead of being a formal composition, is 
characterized by a lack of formality. It is a species of very 
friendly and familiar writing. Like good conversation, it 
turns in any direction, and drops now and then into interest- 
ing anecdotes or pleasant descriptions, but never makes any 
attempt to go to the heart of a subject. However serious an 
essay may be it never becomes extremely formal or all- 
inclusive. 

A chapter in a textbook includes all that the subject 
demands and all that the scope of treatment permits. It 
presents well-organized information in clear, logical form. 
It aims definitely to explain or to instruct. It may reveal 
nothing whatever concerning its writer. An essay, on the 
other hand, includes only those parts of the subject that in- 
terest the writer ; it avoids logical form, and is just as chatty, 
wandering, anecdotal and aimless as is familiar talk. It 
focuses attention, not on subject-matter but on the person- 
ality of the writer. 

The essay does not reveal a subject: it reveals personal 
interests in a subject. It touches instead of analyzing. It 
comments instead of classifying. 

Truth may sparkle in an essay as gold sparkles in the 
sand of an Alaskan river, but the presentation of the truth in 
a scientific sense is no more the purpose of the essay than 
is the presentation of the gold the purpose of the river. In 



xii INTRODUCTION 

the eighteenth century, essayists like Joseph Addison, 
Richard Steele, Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson, com- 
mented freely upon eighteenth century manners and customs, 
but they made no attempt to present a careful survey of the 
subject. Every writer wrote of what happened to interest him. 
To-day it is possible to draw from the great body of eighteenth 
century essays material for an almost complete survey of 
manners and customs in that period — but that result is only 
an accident. The writers did not intend it. 

The essayist is not concerned with giving accurate and 
logically-arranged information. He thinks only of telling how 
his subject appeals to him, of telling whether or not he likes 
it, and why. The more personally he writes, the better we like 
his work. In his revelation of himself we find a sort of 
revelation of ourselves as well, — and we like his work in pro- 
portion to that revelation. 

Naturally, a good essay is short ; for self-revelation is given 
in flashes, as it were, — in sparkles of thought that gleam only 
for a moment. Many so-called essays of great length are 
either only partly essays, or else are made up of a number 
of essays put together. Stevenson's An Inland Voyage is 
partly a straightforward story of a canoe trip, and partly 
a series of essays on subjects suggested by the trip. It is 
possible to draw from a self-revealing book of considerable 
length a great number of essays on a wide variety of subjects. 
The essays gleam in the pages of ordinary material as dia- 
monds gleam in their settings of gold. 

The essay, as a literary type, is written comment upon any 
subject, highly informal in nature, extremely personal in 
character, and brief in expression. It is also usually marked 
by a notable beauty of style. 

Ill 

TYPES OF THE ESSAY 

Just as there are many kinds of houses and many kinds of 
boats so there are many kinds of essays. Some essays tend 



INTEODUCTION xiii 

to emphasize the giving of information, lean very strongly 
toward formality, and place comparatively little weight on 
personality, — and yet even such essays, as compared with 
other and more serious writings, are discursive and personal. 
They are like some people who seem to favor extreme for- 
mality without ever quite attaining it. 

Other essays are critical. They point out the good and the 
bad, and they set forward ideals that should be reached. 
The criticism they give is not measured and accurate like 
the criticism a cabinet-maker might make concerning the con- 
struction of a desk. It is more or less personal and haphazard 
like the remarks of one who knows what he likes and what he 
does not like but who does not wish to bother himself by 
going into minute details. 

Many essays tell stories, but never for the sake of the 
stories alone. They use the stories as frameworks on which 
to hang thought, or as illustrations to emphasize thought. The 
essays hold beyond and above everything the personality of 
the one who writes. 

Almost all essays are in some sense biographical, but they 
reveal stories of lives, instead of telling the stories in organ- 
ized form. The little of biography that essays tell is 
just enough to permit the writers to recall the memories of 
childhood, and the varied affections and interests of life. 
For real biography one must go elsewhere than to essays. 

Some essays lift one into a fine and close communion with 
their writers, and give intimate companionship with a human 
soul. They are the best of all essays. Such essays are always 
extremely familiar, and deeply personal, like the essays of 
Michel de Montaigne and Charles Lamb. About such essays 
is an aroma, a fascination, a delight, that makes them a 
joy forever. As one reads such essays he feels that he is walk- 
ing and talking with the writers, and that he hears them 
express noble and uplifting thoughts. 

The terse style of Francis Bacon; the magical phrases of 
Sir Thomas Browne; the well-rounded sentences of Joseph 
Addison, Sir Richard Steele and Oliver Goldsmith; the 
poetic prose of Thomas de Quincey; the charm of the 



xiv INTEODUCTION 

pages of Charles Lamb and Robert Louis Stevenson, — 
all this is in no sense accidental. The intimate revela- 
tion of self, such as is always made by the best essayists, 
creates the most pleasing style. Genuine self-expression, 
whether it be the fervor of an impassioned orator, the ardor 
of a lyric poet, or the meditative mood of the essayist, always 
tends to embody itself in an appropriate style. For that 
reason much of the best prose of the language is to be found 
in the works of the great essayists. 

Some writers, like Thomas de Quincey, have so felt the 
significance of beauty of style, and have so appreciated its 
relationship to the revelation of mood and personality, that 
they seem, in some cases, to have written for style alone. 
Their essays are unsurpassed tissues of prose and poetry. 

IV 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ESSAY 

Theough the medium of spoken or written meditations 
men have always expressed their personalities, and thereby 
have approached the writing of essays. Many sections of 
the Bible are practically essays, especially those passages in 
Ecclesiastes that speak concerning friendship, wisdom, pride, 
gossip, vengeance, punishment and topics of similar type. In 
the ancient Greek and Roman orations are essay -like sections 
in which the speakers paused for a moment to express their 
innermost thoughts about life, patriotism, duty, or the great 
fact of death. Cicero, one of the most remarkable Romans, 
wrote admirably and with a spirit of familiarity and frank- 
ness, on friendship, old age, and immortality. In all ages, in 
speeches, in letters, and in longer works, essay-like produc- 
tions appeared. 

The invention of the modern essay, — that is, of the ex- 
tremely informal, intimate and personal meditation, — came 
in 1571, in France. The inventor of the new type of litera- 
ture was Michel de Montaigne, a retired scholar, counsellor 
and courtier, who found a studious refuge in the old tower 
of Montaigne, where he meditated and wrote for nine years. 



INTRODUCTION xv 

His essays, which were first published in 1580, are so delight- 
fully informal, so frankly personal, so clever and well-aimed 
in humor, and so wise, that they are almost without parallel. 
In 1601 an Italian, Giovanni Florio, translated Montaigne's 
essays into English, Immediately the essays became popular 
and they have deeply influenced the writing of essays in Eng- 
lish. In 1597 Francis Bacon published the first of his essays, 
but he did not write with the familiarity that characterized 
Montaigne. Nevertheless, his work, together with that of 
Montaigne, is to be regarded as representing the beginning 
of the modern essay. 

It was not until the development of the newspaper in the 
eighteenth century that the essay found its real period of 
growth as a literary type. In the first half of the eighteenth 
century The Tatler and The Spectator, and similar periodicals, 
gave an opportunity for the publication of short prose com- 
positions of a popular nature. Joseph Addison and Richard 
Steele, writing with kindly humor on the foibles of the day, 
did much to establish the popularity of the essay. Samuel 
Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith and other writers, in other period- 
icals, continued the writing of essays, and made the power of 
the essay known. 

Until the time of Charles Lamb, in the first half of the 
nineteenth century, no English writer had even approached 
the familiar charm of Montaigne. Bacon had written in a 
formal manner; his followers had held before them the 
thought of teaching rather than the thought of self -revelation ; 
the eighteenth century writers had delighted in character 
studies and in observations on social life and customs. Lamb, 
on the other hand, wrote not to instruct but to communicate ; 
not about the world but about himself. He restored the 
essay to its position as a means of self -revelation. The most 
notable fact about Lamb's essays is that they reveal him to 
us as one of the persons whom we know best. At the same 
time humor, pathos and beauty of expression are so remark- 
able in Lamb's essays that they alone give them permanent 
value. 

Other writers of the essay, like Leigh Hunt, Sydney Smith, 



xvi INTEODUCTION 

William Hazlitt, and Francis Jeffrey, wrote powerfully but 
none of them with a charm equal to that of Lamb. Thomas 
de Quincey, writing in a highly poetic style, did much to stim- 
ulate poetic prose. Lord Macaulay, in a number of critical 
and biographical essays, wrote forcefully, logically, and with 
a high degree of mastery of style but he paid slight attention 
to self -revelation. 

It is evident, then, that there are two marked types of 
the essay, — one, the formal, purposive composition; and the 
other informal and intensely personal in nature. Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin, and James Russell 
Lowell represent the first type. Many excellent articles in 
periodicals, and many of the best of editorial articles in 
newspapers are in reality essays of the formal kind. Wash- 
ington Irving, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry D. Thoreau, 
George William Curtis and many others represent the second 
type. 

In modern times the world has been blessed by the writing 
of a number of essays of the charming, familiar type. John 
Burroughs has revealed his love for the world of nature; 
Henry \^an Dyke has taken us among the mountains and 
along the rivers ; and Gilbert K. Chesterton, Arnold Bennett, 
Samuel M. Crothers, Charles Dudley Warner, Hamilton 
Wright Mabie, Brander Matthews, Agnes Repplier and a 
host of others have written on many and varied subjects. 

Great essayists, like great novelists or great poets or great 
dramatists, are rare. It is only now and then that a Mon- 
taigne, a Charles Lamb, or a Robert Louis Stevenson appears. 
It is to the glory of literature, however, that there are so 
many who write in the field of the essay, and who approach 
true greatness, even if they do not attain it. 

V 

ESSAYS WELL WORTH READING 

Joseph Addison T mi. a i. i. 

Sir Richard Steele J ^^^ Spectator 

Apochrypha, The Ecclesiastieus 

Arnold, Matthew Culture and Anarchy 



INTRODUCTION 



ESSAYS WELL WORTH READING (Continued) 



Bacon, Francis 
Bennett, Arnold 
Browne, Sir Thomas 
Bible, The H0I7 
Burroughs, John 



Carlyle, Thomas 
Curtis, George William 
Chesterfield, Lord 
Crothers, Samuel M. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo 
Goldsmith, Oliver 
Grayson, David 
Harrison, Frederic 
Hearn, Lafcadio 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell 



Irving, Washington 

Johnson, Samuel 
it (I 

Lamb, Charles 
Lowell, James Russell 
Matthews, Brander 
Mabie, Hamilton Wright 
Macaulay, Thomas Babington 
Maeterlinck, Maurice 



Mitchell, Donald G. 

( ( (I I < 

Montaigne, Michel de 

Pater, Walter 

De Quincey, Thomas 

n < < 

Repplier, Agnes 
Ruskin, John 
Roosevelt, Theodore 
Ross, E. A. 
Shairp, John Campbell 
Stevenson, Robert Louia 



Essays 

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day 

Religio Medici 

Ecclesiastes 

Birds and Bees 

Locusts and Wild Honey 

Wake Robin 

Winter Sunshine 

Accepting the Universe 

Heroes and Hero Worship 

Prue and I 

Letters to His Son 

The Gentle Reader 

Essays 

The Citizen of the World 

Adventures in Contentment 

The Choice of Books 

Out of the East 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast 

Table 
The Professor at the Breakfast 

Table 
The Poet at the Breakfast Table 
Over the Teacups 
The Sketch Book 
The Idler 
The Rambler 
Essays 

Among My Books 
Aspects of Fiction 
Essays on Nature and Culture 
Milton 

Field Flowers 
News of the Spring 
Old Fashioned Flowers 
Reveries of a Bachelor 
Dream Life 



Appreciations 

Vision of Sudden Death 

Dream Fugue 

In Our Convent Days 

Sesame and Lilies 

The Strenuous Life 

Sin and Society 

Studies in Poetry and Philosophy 

Inland Voyage 

Travels with a Donkey 

Virginibus Puerisque 

Memories and Portraits 

Later Essays 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

ESSAYS WELL WORTH READING (Continued) 

Thoreau, Henry David A Week on the Concord and Mer- 

rimac Rivers 
" " " Walden 

" " " The Maine Woods 

" " Cape Cod 

Van Dyke, Henry Little Rivers 

" " " Fisherman's Luck 

Wagner, Charles The Simple Life 

White, Gilbert The Natural History and Antiqui- 

ties of Selborne 



VI 

THE WRITING OF SHORT STORIES 

You cross a street and narrowly escape being run over by 
an automobile; or you go on a picnic and have delightful 
experiences; or you return from travel, with the memory of 
happy adventures — at once an uncontrollable impulse besets 
you to tell some one what you experienced. That desire to 
interest some one else in the series of actions that interested 
you, is the basis of all story-telling. 

In one of its simplest forms story-telling is personal and 
concerns events that actually occurred to the story-teller. 
Such narration uses the words "I," "me" and "mine," seeks 
no development, aims at no climax, and strikes at interest only 
through telling of the unusual. 

When you stand before an abandoned farm-house and see 
its half-fallen chimney, its decayed boards, its gaping win- 
dows, and the wild vines that clamber into what was once a 
home your imagination takes fire, and you think of happier 
days that the house has seen. You imagine the man and 
woman who built it ; the children who played in its doorways ; 
and the happy gatherings or sad scenes that marked its story. 
That quick imagination of the might -be and the might-have- 
heen is the beginning both of realism and of romance. The 
story you would tell would use the third person, in all prob- 
ability; would seek an orderly development, and would aim 
at climax. 



INTRODUCTION xhc 

When you stand in your window on a winter day and 
watch thousands of snow-flakes float down from the sky, 
circling in fantastic whirls, you see them as so many white 
fairies led by a master spirit in revel and dance. Yuu are 
ready to tell, with whatever degree of fancy and skill you 
can command, the story of the-world-as-it-is-not and as-it- 
never-will-be. A story of that kind is pure romance. 

Whenever you tell what happened to you or to some one 
else ; or what might have been or might be ; or of what could 
not possibly be, your object is to interest some one else in 
what interests you. You use many expedients to capture 
and to hold interest: you make a quick beginning, or careful 
preparation for the climax; you make your story as real or 
as striking as you can make it ; you cut it short or you tell it 
at length; or you hold the reader's attention on some point 
of interest that you do not reveal in full until the last. What- 
ever you do to capture and to hold interest makes for art in 
story-telling. 

When an airplane descends unexpectedly in a country 
town every one in the place wishes, as soon as possible, to learn 
whence the aviator came and what experiences he had. 
Human curiosity is insatiable, and for that reason people love 
to hear stories as well as to tell them. 

In fact, people gain distinct advantages by reading stories. 
They become acquainted with many types of character; they 
see all sorts of interesting events that they could never see 
in reality; they see what happens under certain circum- 
stances, and thereby they gain practical lessons. Through 
their reading they gain such vivid experiences that they are 
likely to have a larger outlook upon life. 

VII 

NATURE OF THE SHORT STORY 

Brevity is the first essential of a short story, and yet 
under the term, "brief," may be included a story that 
is told in one or two paragraphs, and a story that is told in 
many pages. A story that is so long that it cannot be read 
easily at a single sitting is not a short story. 



XX INTRODUCTION 

To make one strong impression on the mind of the reader, 
and to make that impression so powerfully that it will leave 
the reader pleased, convinced and emotionally moved is the 
principal aim of a good short story. To the production of 
that one effect everything in the story, — characters, action, 
description, and exposition, — points with the definiteness of 
an established purpose. All else is omitted, and thus all the 
parts of the story are both necessary and harmonious. 

Centralizing everything on the production of one effect 
makes every short story complete in itself. The purpose 
having been accomplished there is nothing more to be said. 
The end is the end. 

A convincing sense of reality characterizes every excellent 
short story. The author himself appears only as one who 
narrates truth, not at all as one who has moved the puppets 
of imagination. The story seems a transcript from real 
experience. The characters, — not the author, — make the plot. 
Their personalities reveal themselves in action. The entire 
story is founded substantially upon life and appears as a 
photographic glimpse of reality. 

As in all other writing, the greater the art of the writer in 
adapting style to thought, in using language effectively, the 
better production. Word-choice, power of phrasing, and skill 
in artistic construction count for as much in the short story as 
in any other type of literature. 



VIII 

TYPES OF THE SHORT STORY 

Since the short story represents life, it has as many types 
as there are interests in life. It may confine itself to the 
ordinary events of life in city or country, at home or abroad ; 
it may concern past events in various regions; or it may 
look with a prophetic glance into the distant future. It may 
concern nothing but verifiable truth or be highly imaginative, 
delicately fanciful, or notably grotesque. It may draw 
interest from quaint places and odd characters, or it may 



INTEODUCTION xxi 

appeal through vividness of action. It may aim to do nothing 
more than to arouse interest and to give pleasure for a 
moment, or it may endeavor to teach a truth. 

Among the many types of the short story a few are espe- 
cially worthy of note. 

Folk-lore stories are stories that have been told by common 
people for ages. They come direct from the experience and 
the common sense of ordinary people. They represent the 
interests, the faith and the ideals of the race from which they 
come. 

Fables are very short stories that point out virtues and 
defects in human character presented in the guise of animal 
life. 

Legends are stories that have come down to us from a time 
beyond our own. They are less simple and direct than the 
ordinary folk-lore story. Undoubtedly founded on actual 
occurrences they have tinged fact with a poetic beauty that 
ennobles them and often gives them highly ethical values. 

Stories of adventure emphasize startling events rather than 
character. 

Love stories emphasize courtship and the episodes of 
romantic love. 

Local color stories reveal marked characteristics of custom 
and language, and the oddities of life notable in a particular 
locality. 

Dialect stories make use of the language peculiarities found 
in common use by a particular type of people. 

Stories of the supernatural deal with ghostly characters 
and uncanny forces. 

Stories of mystery present puzzling problems, and slowly, 
step by step, lead the readers to satisfactory solutions. 

Animal stories, whether realistic or romantic, concern the 
lives of animals. 

Stories of allegory, through symbolic characters and events, 
reveal moral truths. 

Stories of satire, by ridiculing types of character, social 
customs, or methods of action, tend to awaken a spirit of 
reform. 



xxii INTEODrCTlON 

Stories of science present narratives based upon the exposi- 
tion and the actual use of scientific facts. 

Stories of character emphasize notable personalities, place 
stress upon motive and the inner nature rather than upon 
outer action, and clarify the reader's understanding of human 
character. 

IX 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHORT STORY 

Although the beginnings of the short story existed in the 
past, and although tales were told in all ages, the short story, 
in its present form, is a comparatively new type of literature. 
The short, complete, realistic narrative designed to produce a 
single strong impression, came into being in the first half of 
the nineteenth century. The first writer to point out and to 
exemplify the principles of the modern short story was Edgar 
Allan Poe, 1809-1849. 

As early as 4000 B.C. the Egyptians composed the Tales 
of the Magicians, and in the pre-Christian eras the Greeks 
and other peoples wrote short prose narratives. Folk-lore 
tales go back to very early times. The celebrated Gesta 
Romanorum is a collection of anecdotes and tales drawn from 
many ages and peoples, including the Greeks, the Egyptians 
and the peoples of Asia. In the early periods of the history 
of Europe and of England many narratives centered around 
the supposed exploits of romantic characters like the ancient 
Greeks and Trojans, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne and 
King Arthur. 

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Italians 
became skilful in the telling of tales called novelle. Giovanni 
Bocaccio, 1313-1375, brought together from wide and varied 
sources a collection of one hundred such tales in a volume 
called II Decamerone. He united the tales by imagining that 
seven ladies and three gentlemen who had fled from Florence 
to avoid the plague, pass their time in story-telling. His work 
had the deepest influence on many later writers, including par- 



INTEODUCTION xxiii 

ticularly the English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, 1340-1400, whose 
Canterbury Tales re-tell some of Bocaccio's stories. Chaucer 
imagines that a number of people, representing all the types 
of English life, tell stories as they journey slowly to the shrine 
of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. His stories intimately 
reveal the actual England of his day. He is the first great 
realist. 

In the sixteenth century many writers, particularly in Italy, 
France and Spain, told ingenious stories that developed new 
interest in story-telling and story-reading. 

The writing of character studies and the development of 
periodicals led, in the eighteenth century, to such essays as 
The Sir Boger de Coverley Papers, written for The Spectator 
by Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, and Sir Richard Steele, 1672- 
1729. The doings of Sir Roger de Coverley are told so 
realistically and so entertainingly that it was evident that 
such material could be used not only to illustrate the thought 
of an essayist but also for its own sake in stories founded on 
character. 

About the beginning of the nineteenth century stories of 
an uncanny nature, — of ghosts and strange events, — the so- 
called "Gothic" stories, — became widely popular. Two Ger- 
man writers, E. T. A. Hoffmann, 1776-1822, and Ludwig Tieck, 
1773-1853, wrote with such peculiar power that they led other 
writers to imitate them. Among the followers of Tieck and 
Hoffmann the most notable name is that of Edgar Allan Poe. 

Poe's contemporaries, Washington Irving, 1783-1859, and 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864, likewise showed the in- 
fluence of the "Gothic" school of writing. Irving turned the 
ghostly into humor, as in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; 
Hawthorne wrote of the mysterious in terms of fancy and 
allegory, as in Ethan Brand, The Birth Mark, and Bappac- 
cini's Daughter; Poe directed all his energy to the produc- 
tion of single effect, — frequently the effect of horror, as in 
The Cask of Amontillado, The Black Cat and The Pit and the 
Pendulum. Poe's natural ability as a constructive artist, and 
his genuine interest in story-telling, led him to formulate the 
five principles of the short story: — brevity, single effect, 



xxiv INTEODUCTION 

verisimilitude, the omission of the non-essential, and finality. 
From the time when Poe pointed the way the short story 
has had an unparalleled development. French writers like 
Guy de Maupassant; British writers like Rudyard Kipling; 
Russian writers like Count Leo Tolstoi, and American 
writers like 0. Henry, Richard Harding Davis, Frank R. 
Stockton, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 
F. Hopkinson Smith, Jack London, and a thousand others, 
have carried on the great tradition. 



AUTHORS OF SHORT STORIES WELL WORTH 
READING 

Volumes containing short stories by the following writers 
will be found in any public library. Any one who wishes 
to gain an understanding of the principles of the short story 
should read a number of stories by every writer named in 
the list. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrieh Washington Irving 

Hans Christian Andersen Myra Kelly 

James Matthew Barrie Eudyard Kipling 

Alice Brown Jack London 

Henry Cuyler Banner Brander Matthews 

Kichard Harding Davis Ian Maclaren 

Margaret Deland Fiona McLeod 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Edgar Allan Poe 

Eugene Field Thomas Nelson Page 

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Ernest Thompson Seton 

Hamlin Garland F. Hopkinson Smith 

Nathaniel Hawthorne Frank E. Stockton 

Joel Chandler Harris Eobert Louis Stevenson 

O. Henry Euth McEnery Stuart 

Bret Harte Henry Van Dyke 



CONTENTS 

PAOB 

PEEFACE ...,.,. V 

INTEODUCTION ix 

I The Writing of Essays ix 

II Nature of the Essay xi 

III Types of the Essay xii 

IV The Development of the Essay xiv 

V Essays Well Worth Eeading xvi 

VI The Writing of Short Stories xviii 

VII Nature of the Short Story xix 

VIII Types of the Short Story xx 

IX The Development of the Short Story xxii 

X Authors of Short Stories Well Worth Eeading . . . xxiv 

THE FAMILIAE ESSAY 

The Pup-Dog Robert Palfrey Utter 3 

Chewing Gum Charles Dudley Warner 11 

The Mystery of Ah Sing 16 

Old Doc Opie Bead 19 

Christmas Shopping Helen Davenport 26 

Sunday Bells Gertrude Henderson 28 

Discovery Georges Duhamel 31 

The Furrows Gilbert E. Chesterton 36 

Meditation and Imagination . . Hamilton Wright Mabie 40 

Who Owns the Mountains? .... Henry Van Dyke 49 

THE LEGENDAEY STOEY 

Eunning Wolf Algernon Blackwood 55 

THE BIOLOGICAL ESSAY 

How I Found America Ansia Yesierska 77 

Memories of Chilt)H00D . . . William Henry Shelton 94 

A Visit to John Burroughs . . . Sadakichi Hartmann 100 

Washington on Horseback H. A. Ogden 108 

XXV 



xxvi CONTENTS 

THE HISTORICAL STORY ^^^^ 

Havelok the Dane George Philip Krapp 119 

THE STORY ESSAY 

Politics Up to Date Frederick Lewis Allen 136 

Feee Charles Hanson Towne 143 

THE STORY OF ADVENTURE 

Pruniee Tells a Stoey . . . . T. Morris Longstreth 148 

THE DIDACTIC ESSAY 

The American Boy Theodore Roosevelt 168 

The Spirit of Adventure .... Hildegarde Hawthorne 176 

Vanishing New York . . Boiert and Elizabeth ShacMeton 184 

The Songs of the Civil War . . . Brander Matthews 203 

Locomotion in the Twentieth Century . . H. G. Wells 210 

The Writing of Essays Charles S. Brooks 219 

The Rhythm of Prose Boiert Bay Lorant 225 

THE REALISTIC STORY 

The Chinaman 's Head .... William Base Benet 230 

Getting Up to Date . Boberta Wayne 239 

The Lion and the Mouse ..... Joseph B. Ames 253 

THE CRITICAL ESSAY 

Coddling in Education . .. . . . Henry Seidel Canby 267 

A Successful Failure ....,.,.. Glenn Frank 271 

The Drolleries of Clothes >. ,., . . . Agnes Bepplier 278 

POETIC PROSE 

Children Yukio Ozaki 284 

Ships That Lift Tall Spires of Canvas . Balph D. Paine 287 

PERSONALITY IN .CORRESPONDENCE 

The Statue of General Sherman . . Theodore Boosevelt 291 
The Roosevelt Saint-Gaudens Correspondence Concerning 

Coinage, Theodore Boosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens 292 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

' ' Havelok had all he wanted to eat " Frontispiece 

PACING 
PAGE 

The feeling stole over him without the slightest warning. He was 

not alone 60 

My great-grandmother 96 

Colonel Humphreys landed in the ditch 116 

"You made a fine signal" 164 

It has been called the oldest building in New York 188 

' ' A-ah, mystery ! ' ' said Mrs. Revis, clasping her beautiful hands 

and gazing upward. ' ' I adore mystery ! " 236 

"Isn't this great! They're here, every one of them! You're 

awfully good to let us use the phonograph " 248 

At the very take-off, a gasp of horror was jolted from his lips . 264 

The fluctuations of fashion are alternately a grievance and a solace 280 

Its humming shrouds were vibrant with the eternal call of the sea 288 

Designing the ten- and twenty-dollar gold pieces 292 



MODERN ESSAYS 
AND STORIES 



THE FAMILIAR ESSAY 
THE PUP-DOG 

By EGBERT PALFEEY UTTER 

(1875 — ). Associate Professor of English in the University 
of California. He taught for a time at Harvard and also at 
Amherst. He is a delightful essayist, and contributes fre- 
quently to various magazines. 

The writer of a familiar essay selects any subject in which he la 
interested. Sometimes the more trifling the subject seems to be, the 
more delightful is the essay. Trifles, in fact, make up life, and around 
them center many of our deepest interests. The very charm of the 
familiar essay lies in its ability to call attention to the value of trifles, 
— to the little things in life, to little events, and to all the odds and 
ends of human interests. 

The familiar essay is nothing more than happy talk that gives us, 
as it were, a walk or a chat with one who has a keen mind, a ready wit, 
and a pleasant spirit. 

The Pup-Dog is an unusually excellent illustration of the familiar 
essay. We all love him, — 'the pup-dog, — the good friend about whom 
Mr. Utter has written so amusingly, so understandingly, and so sympa- 
thetically. As we read we can see the dog jumping and hear him bark- 
ing; we laugh at his antics; we are, in fact, taking a walk with Mr. 
Utter while he talks to us about his dog, — or our dog. 

Any dog is a pup-dog so long as he prefers a rat, dead or 
alive, to chocolate fudge, a moldy bone to sponge cake, a fight 
with a woodchuck to hanging round the tea-table for sweet 
biscuit. Of course he will show traits of age as years advance, 
but usually they are physical traits, not emotional. For the 
most part dogs' affections burn warmly, and their love of life 
and experience brightly, while life lasts. They remain young, 
as poets do. Every dog is a pup-dog, but some are more so 
than others. 

Most so of all is the Irish terrier. To me he stands as the 

3 



4 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

archetype of the dog, and the doggier a dog is, the better I 
like him. I love the collie ; none better. I have lived with 
him, and ranged the hills with him in every kind of weather, 
and you can hardly tell me a story of his loyalty and intel- 
ligence that I cannot go you one better. But the collie is a 
gentleman. He has risen from the ranks, to be sure, but he is 
every inch the gentleman, and just now I am speaking of dogs. 
The terrier is every inch a dog, and the Irish is the terrier 
par excellence. 

The man who mistakes him for an Airedale, as many do, is 
one who does not know an Irishman from a Scot. The Aire- 
dale has a touch of the national dourness; I believe that he 
is a Calvinist at heart, with a severe sense of personal respon- 
sibility. The Irish terrier can atone vicariously or not at all 
for his light-hearted sins. The Airedale takes his romance 
and his fighting as seriously as an Alan Breck. The Irish 
terrier has all the imagination and humor of his race; he 
has a rollicking air; he is whimsical, warm-hearted, jaunty, 
and has the gift of blarney. He loves a scrimmage better than 
his dinner, but he bears no malice. 

His fellest earthly foes, 
Cats, he does but affect to hate. 

The terrier family is primarily a jolly, good-natured crowd 
whose business it is to dig into the lairs of burrowing creatures 
and fight them at narrow quarters. The signal for the fight 
is the attack on the intrusive nose. You can read this family 
history in the pup-dog's treatment of the cat. The cat of 
his own household with whom he is brought up he rallies with 
good-humored banter, but he is less likely to hurt her than 
she him. He will take her with him on his morning round 
of neighborhood garbage-pails, and even warm her kittens on 
his back as he lies in the square of sunshine on the kitchen 
floor, till they begin to knead their tiny claws into him in a 
futile search for nourishment; then he shakes them patiently 
off and seeks rest elsewhere. He will chase any cat as long 
as she will run ; if she refuses to run, he will dance round her 
and bark, trying to get up a game. " Be a sport ! " he taunts 



THE PUP-DOG 5 

her. ' ' Take a chance ! ' ' But if she claws his nose, she treads 
on the tail of his coat, and no Irish gentleman will stand 
for that. 

Similar are his tactics with human creatures. First he 
tries a small bluff to see if he can start anything. If his 
victim shows signs of fear, he redoubles his effort, his tail the 
while signaling huge delight at his success. If the victim 
shows fight, he may develop the attack in earnest. The victim 
who shows either fear or fight betrays complete ignorance of 
dog nature, for the initial bluff is always naively transparent ; 
the pup-dog may have a poker face, but his tail is a rank 
traitor. A nest of yellow- jackets in a hole in the ground 
challenges his every instinct. He cocks his ear at the subter- 
ranean buzzing, tries a little tentative excavation with cau- 
tious paw. Soon one of the inmates scores on the tip of his 
nose, and war is declared in earnest. There are leaping 
attacks with clashing of teeth, and wildly gyrating rear-guard 
actions. Custom cannot stale the charm of the spot ; all sum- 
mer, so long as there is a wing stirring, hornets shall be hot i' 
the mouth. 

The degree of youth which the pup-dog attains and holds 
is that of the human male of eleven or twelve years. He 
nurses an inextinguishable quarrel with the hair-brush. His 
hatred of the formal bath is chronic, but he will paddle 
delightedly in any casual water out of doors, regardless of 
temperatures and seasons. At home he will sometimes scoff at 
plain, wholesome food, but to the public he gives the impres- 
sion that his family systematically starve him, and his dietetic 
experiments often have weird and disastrous results. You 
can never count on his behavior except on formal occasions, 
when you know to a certainty that he will disgrace you. His 
Ciijriosity is equaled only by his adroitness in getting out of 
awkward situations into which it plunges him. His love of 
play is unquenchable by weariness or hunger; there is no 
time when the sight of a ball will not rouse him to clamorous 
activity. 

For fine clothes he has a satiric contempt, and will almost 
intvariably manage to land a dirty footprint on white waist- 



6 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

coat or "ice-cream pants" in the first five minutes of their 
immaculacy. He is one hundred per cent, motor-minded; 
when he is "stung with the splendor of a sudden thought," he 
springs to immediate action. In the absence of any ideas he 
relaxes and sleeps with the abandon of a jute door-mat. 

Dog meets dog as boy meets boy, with assertions of supe- 
riority, challenge, perhaps fight, followed by friendship and 
play. No wonder that with pup-boys the pup-dog is so com- 
pletely at one; his code is their code, and whither they go 
he goes — except to school. With September come the dull 
days for him. No more the hordes of pirates and bandits 
with bandanas and peaked hats, belts stuck full of dirks and 
" ottermaticks, " sweep up and down the sidewalk on bicycles 
in open defiance of the law, raiding lawns and gardens, scat- 
tering shrieking tea-parties of little girls and dolls, haling 
them aboard the lugger in the next lot and holding them 
for fabulous ransom. There is always some one who will 
pay it with an imposing check signed "Theodore Wilson 
Roosevelt Woodrow Rockefeller." He prances with flop- 
ping ears beside the flying wheels, crouches in ambush, gives 
tongue in the raid, flies at the victims and tears their 
frocks, mounts guard in the cave, and shares the bandits' last 
cookie. 

But when the pirates become orderly citizens, his day 
begins after school and ends with supper. With his paws 
on the window-sill, his nose making misty spots on the glass, 
he watches them as they march away in the morning, then 
he makes a perfunctory round of the neighborhood, inspecting 
garbage-pails and unwary cats. After that there is nothing 
to do but relax in the September sunshine and exist in a 
coma till the pirates return and resume their normal functions, 
except for his routine attempt to intimidate the postman and 
the iceman. Perhaps he might succeed some happy day; 
who knows? 

The pup-dog in the open is the best of companions; his 
exuberant vitality and unquenchable zest for things in general 
give him endless variety. There are times, perhaps, when you 



THE PUP-DOG 7 

see little of him ; he uses you as a mobile base of operations, 
and runs an epicycloidal course with you, as moving center, 
showing only a flash of his tail on one horizon or the flop of 
his ears on the other. You hear his wild cries of excitement 
when he starts a squirrel or a rabbit. By rare luck you may 
be called in time to referee a fight with a woodchuck, or once 
in a happy dog's age you may see him, a khaki streak through 
the underbrush, in pursuit of a fox. 

At last you hear the drumming of his feet on the road 
behind you; he shoots past before he can shift gears, wheels, 
and lands a running jump on your diaphragm by way of 
reporting present for duty. Thereafter he sticks a little closer, 
popping out into the road or showing his tousled face through 
the leaves at intervals of two or three hundred yards to make 
sure that you are still on the planet. Then you may enjoy 
his indefatigable industry in counting with his nose, his tail 
quivering with delight, the chinks of old stone walls. You 
may light your pipe and sit by for an hour as he energetically 
follows his family tradition in digging under an old stump, 
shooting the sand out behind with kangaroo strokes, tugging 
at the roots with his teeth, and pausing from time to time 
to grin at you with a yard of pink tongue completely sur- 
rounded by leaf mold. You may admire his zeal as in- 
spector of chipmunks, mice, frogs, grasshoppers, crickets, and 
such small deer. Anything that lives and tries to get away 
from him is fair game except chickens. If round the turn 
of the road he plumps into a hen convention, memories of 
bitter humiliations surge up within him, and he blushes, and 
turns his face aside. Other dogs he meets with tentative 
growling, bristling, and tail-wagging, by way of asserting 
that he will take them on any terms they like ; fight or frolic, 
it is all one to him. 

You cannot win his allegiance by feeding him, though he 
always has his bit of blarney ready for the cook. He loves 
all members of the family with nice discrimination for their 
weaknesses: the pup-boy who cannot resist an invitation 
to romp; the pup-girl who cannot withstand begging blan- 



'8 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

dishments of nose and paw, but will subvert discipline and 
share food with him whenever and wherever she has it. He 
will welcome with leapings and gyrations any one of them 
after a day's absence or an hour's, but his whole-souled alle- 
giance is to the head of the house; his is the one voice that 
speaks with authority; his the first welcome always when 
the family returns in a group. That loyalty, burning bright 
and true to the last spark of life, that unfailing welcome on 
which a man can count more surely than on any human love 
— indeed, there is no secret in a man's love for a dog, how- 
ever we may wonder at the dog's love for the man. Let 
Argos and Ulysses^ stand as the type of it, though to me it 
lacks something of the ideal, not in the image of the dog, but 
in the conduct of the man. Were I disguised for peril of 
my life, and my dog, after the wanderings and dangers of 
many years, lifted his head and knew me and then died, I 
think no craft could withhold my feelings from betraying 
me. 

* * Dogs know their friends, ' ' we say, as if there were mystery 
in the knowledge. The password of the fraternity is not 
hidden ; you may hear it anywhere. It was spoken at my own 
hearth when the pup-dog, wet with autumn rain, thrust him- 
self between my guest and the andirons and began to steam. 
My guest checked my remonstrance. "Don't disturb him 
on my account, you know. I rather like the smell of a wet 
dog," he added apologetically. The word revealed a back- 
ground that made the speaker at once and forever my guest- 
friend. In it I saw boy and dog in rain and snow on wet 
trails, their camp in narrow shelter, where they snuggle to- 
gether with all in common that they have of food and warmth. 
He who shared his boyhood with a pup-dog will always share 
whatever is his with members of the fraternity. He will value 
the wagging of a stubby tail above all dog-show points and 
parlor tricks. He will not be rash to chide affectionate impor- 
tunity, nor to set for his dog higher standards than he 

* According to Homer 's Odyssey when Ulysses returned after many 
years of wandering, his old dog "Argos" recognized him, even in 
disguise. 



THE PUP-DOG 9 

upholds for himself. Do you never nurse a grouch and 
express it in appropriate language ? Do you never take direct 
action when your feelings get away with you? When the 
like befalls the pup-dog, have ready for him such sympathy 
as he has always ready for you in your moods. Treat him 
as an equal, and you will get from him human and imperfect 
results. 

You will never know exactly what your pup-dog gets from 
you ; he tries wistfully to tell you, but leaves you still wonder- 
ing. But you may have from him a share of his perennial 
puphood, and you do well to accept it gratefully whenever he 
offers it. Take it when it comes, though the moment seem 
inopportune. You may be roused just as you settle for a 
nap by a moist nose thrust into your hand, two rough brown 
paws on the edge of your bunk, a pair of bright eyes peering 
through a jute fringe. Up he comes, steps over you, and 
settles down between you and the wall with a sigh. Then, if 
you shut your eyes, you will find that you are not far from 
that place up on the hill — the big rock and the two oaks — 
where the pup-boy that used to be you used to snuggle down 
with that first old pup-dog you ever had. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What is the effect of the title? 

2. How does Mr. Utter make us love the dog? 

3. What knowledge of dog life does the writer show? 

4. Point out words or expressions that are usually applied only to 

human beings, that are here applied to dogs. 

5. Point out adjective effects. 

6. How does the writer make the dog seem amusing? 

7. How does the writer make the dog seem admirable? 

8. What human characteristics are attributed to the dog? 

9. Point out noteworthy examples of humor. 

10. Show how the writer employs detail as a means of emphasis. 

11. Point out examples of especially effective metaphor. 

12. What is said concerning the pup-boy and the pup-girl? 

13. How does the essay make us feel toward dogs? 

14. What is the effect of the closing sentences? 



10 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. My Dog 


11. Cats 


2./ Lap Dogs 


12. Kittens 


3. Police Dogs 


13. Rabbits 


4. Hounds 


14. Mice 


5. Shepherd Dogs 


15. Squirrels 


6. Boston Bulls 


16. Horses 


7. Great Danes 


17. Robins 


8. Newfoundland Dogs 


18. Sea Gulls 


9. Greyhounds 


19. Cows 


10. Stray Dogs 


20. Fish 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Select for your subject some animal with which you are intimately 
familiar, and in which you are especially and sympathetically inter- 
ested. Write about that animal in such a way that you will bring 
to the surface its most humorous qualities and its most admirable 
qualities. Give a great number of details concerning the animal's 
habits, but give those details in a gossipy manner. Use quotations, 
if you can, or make allusions to books. Make all your work empha- 
size goodness. Make your closing paragraph your most effective 
paragraph, — one that will appeal to sentiment. 



CHEWING GUM* 

By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 

(1829-1900). A celebrated American essayist and editor. 
For many years he wrote hrilliant papers for Harper's Maga- 
zine in the departments called "The Editor's Drawer" and 
"The Editor's Study." He became the first President of the 
National Institute of Arts and Letters. He was a great in- 
fluence for good. Among his boolcs are My Summer in a 
Garden; Back-Log Studies; In the Wilderness; The Relation 
of Literature to Life ; As We Were Saying ; Their Pilgrimage. 
He edited the valuable "American Men of Letters Series," 
and the remarkable work called Library of the World's Best 
Literature, a collection of extracts from the world's literature, 
with which every student should be acquainted. 

The familiar essay takes for its subject anything that awakens the 
interest of the essayist. Charles Dudley Warner wrote with freedom 
and humor on a great number of subjects that in themselves suggest 
light and humorous treatment rather than serious thinking. Among 
his many informal essays is the one that follows, entitled Chewing Gum. 

What Mr. Warner says in the essay is by no means serious. It is 
like the spoken reflections of an amused observer who has had his 
attention attracted to the common American habit of chewing gum in 
public. At the same time, under the kindly and facetious remarks, is 
an undercurrent of satire — and satire means criticism. 

In language that is unfortunately understood by the greater 
portion of the people who speak English, thousands are 
saying on the first of January, a far-off date that it is 
wonderful any one has lived to see — "Let us have a new 
deal!" It is a natural exclamation, and does not necessarily 
mean any change of purpose. It always seems to a man that 
if he could shuffle the cards he could increase his advantages 
in the game of life, and, to continue the figure which needs 
so little explanation, it usually appears to him that he could 
play anybody else 's hand better than his own. In all the good 

* From As We Were Saying, by Charles Dudley Warner. Copyright 
by Harper and Brothers. 

U 



12 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

resolutions of the new year, then, it happens that perhaps 
the most sincere is the determination to get a better hand. 
Many mistake this for repentance and an intention to reform, 
when generally it is only the desire for a new shuffle of the 
cards. Let us have a fresh pack and a new deal, and start 
fair. It seems idle, therefore, for the moralist to indulge 
in a homily about annual good intentions, and habits that 
ought to be dropped or acquired, on the first of January, He 
can do little more than comment on the passing show. 

It will be admitted that if the world at this date is not 
socially reformed it is not the fault of the Drawer,^ and for 
the reason that it has been not so much a critic as an explainer 
and encourager. It is in the latter character that it under- 
takes to defend and justify a national industry that has 
become very important within the past ten years. A great 
deal of capital is invested in it, and millions of people are 
actively employed in it. The varieties of chewing gum that 
are manufactured would be a matter of surprise to those who 
have paid no attention to the subject, and who may suppose 
that the millions of mouths they see engaged in its mastica- 
tion have a common and vulgar taste. From the fact that it 
can be obtained at the apothecary's, an impression has got 
abroad that it is medicinal. This is not true. The medical 
profession do not use it, and what distinguishes it from 
drugs — that they also do not use — is the fact that they do not 
prescribe it. ( It is neither a narcotic nor a stimulant. It 
cannot strictly be said to soothe or to excite. The habit of 
using it differs totally from that of the chewing of tobacco 
or the dipping of snuff. It might, by a purely mechanical 
operation, keep a person awake, but no one could go to sleep 
chewing gum. It is in itself neither tonic nor sedative. It 
is to be noticed also that the gum habit differs from the 
tobacco habit in that the aromatic and elastic substance is 
masticated, while the tobacco never is, and that the mastica- 
tion leads to nothing except more mastication. The task is 

'Drawer. The Editor's Drawer of Harper's Magazine for which Mr. 
Warner wrote many of his best essays. 



CHEWING GTJM 13 

one that can never be finished. The amount of energy ex- 
pended in this process if capitalized or conserved would 
produce great results./ Of course the individual does little, 
but if the power evolved by the practice in a district school 
could be utilized, it would suffice to run the kindergarten 
department. The writer has seen a railway car — say in the 
West — filled with young women, nearly every one of whose 
jaws and pretty mouths was engaged in this pleasing occupa- 
tion; and so much power was generated that it would, if 
applied, have kept the car in motion if the steam had been 
shut off — at least it would have furnished the motive for 
illuminating the car by electricity. 

This national industry is the subject of constant detrac- 
tion, satire, and ridicule by the newspaper press. This is 
because it is not understood, and it may be because it is 
mainly a female accomplishment : the few men who chew gum 
may be supposed to do so by reason of gallantry. There 
might be no more sympathy with it in the press if the real 
reason for the practice were understood, but it would be 
treated more respectfully. Some have said that the practice 
arises from nervousness — the idle desire to be busy without 
doing anything — and because it fills up the pauses of vacuity 
in conversation. But this would not fully account for the 
practice of it in solitude. ) Some have regarded it as in 
obedience to the feminine instinct for the cultivation of 
patience and self-denial — patience in a fruitless activity, and 
self-denial in the eternal act of mastication without swallow- 
ing. It is no more related to these virtues than it is to the 
habit of the reflective cow in chewing her cud. The cow 
would never chew gum. The explanation is a more philo- 
sophical one, and relates to a great modern social movement. 
It is to strengthen and develop and make more masculine 
the lower jaw. The critic who says that this is needless, that 
the inclination in women to talk would adequately develop 
this, misses the point altogether. Even if it could be proved 
that women are greater chatterers than men, the critic would 
gain nothing. Women have talked freely since creation, but 



14 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

it remains true that a heavy, strong lower jaw is a distinc- 
tively masculine characteristic. It is remarked that if a 
woman has a strong lower jaw she is like a man. Conversa- 
tion does not create this difference, nor remove it; for the 
development of the lower jaw in women constant mechanical 
exercise of the muscles is needed. Now, a spirit of emancipa- 
tion, of emulation, is abroad, as it ought to be, for the regen- 
eration of the world. It is sometimes called the coming to 
the front of woman in every act and occupation that used to 
belong almost exclusively to man. It is not necessary to say 
a word to justify this. But it is often accompanied by a 
misconception, namely, that it is necessary for woman to be 
like man, not only in habits, but in certain physical character- 
istics. No woman desires a beard, because a beard means 
care and trouble, and would detract from feminine beauty, 
but to have a strong and, in appearance, a resolute underjaw 
may be considered a desirable note of masculinity, and of 
masculine power and privilege, in the good time coming. 
Hence the cultivation of it by the chewing of gum is a 
recognizable and reasonable instinct, and the practice can 
be defended as neither a whim nor a vain waste of energy 
and nervous force. In a generation or two it may be laid 
aside as no longer necessary, or men may be compelled to 
resort to it to preserve their supremacy. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Why does the writer make use of some very colloquial ex- 

pressions ? 

2. Why did he use a number of long and somewhat formal words? 

3. In what sense is the essay a New Year's essay? 

4. Show how the author produces humor. 

5. Show how the author avoids harshness of criticism. 

6. What makes the essay forceful? 

7. In what respects is the essay fantastic? 

8. What advantage does the writer gain by appearing to support 

the habit of chewing gum? 

9. Point out examples of kindly satire. 
10. What is the author's purpose? 



CHEWING GUM 



15 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. Whistling 

2. Lateness 

3. Whispering 

4. Giggling 

5. Writing notes 

6. Complaining 

7. Hurrying 

8. Carelessness 

9. Making excuses 
10. Borrowing 



11. Teasing 

12. Crowding 

13. Rudeness 

14. Inquisitiveness 

15. Untidiness 

16. Forgetfulness 

17. Conceit 

18. Obstinacy 

19. Vanity 

20. Impatience 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

You are to write of some habit that is common and that is more 
or less annoying to well-bred people. Make your words, in mock 
seriousness, appear to defend the habit tliat you ridicule. Make 
your style of writing somewhat ponderous, as though you were 
writing with the utmost gravity, but be sure to write in such a way 
that your essay will convey your sense of the ridiculous. Let your 
whole essay so ridicule the annoying habit that you will tend to 
destroy it. 



THE MYSTERY OF AH SING 

By EGBERT L. DUFFUS 

An editorial writer for the New YorTc Globe, to which, on 
Octoher 5, 1921, he contributed the following humorous edi- 
torial article. 

As we go about in daily life various people attract our attention; 
their peculiarities amuse us, and we make semi-humorous but kindly 
remarks concerning them. Such remarks are the germs of essays like 
the following. 

In the essay, The Mystery of Ah Sing, there is humor but not a single 
unkind word. The essay makes us smile, but with sympathy and under- 
standing. Such essays, trivial as they may be, are restful and pleasing. 

Ah Sing conies on Tuesdays to get the washing and on 
Saturdays to bring it back. He is an urbane, smiling person, 
who appears to view life impersonally and dispassionately. 
One would say that he realized that the career of Ah Sing 
was not of jDrime importance in a population so numerous 
and a universe so extensive. He loves to ask questions. How 
old is the mistress of the house? Where did she come from? 
How much does the master of the house earn ? What does he 
do? Why haven't they any children? Where did they get 
all the books and pictures ? 

Ah Sing always wants to know about the vacations, both 
before and after taking, and looks intelligent when places like 
Nantucket and the Thousand Islands are mentioned. He 
follows the family fortunes like an old retainer, and seems 
to possess a kind of feudal loyalty. It would be morally 
impossible, not to say physically, to give the washing to any 
one but Ah Sing. He would come for it, and the mistress of 
the house would sink through the floor with contrition and 
qmbarrassment. He may die out of his job, or go back to 
China out of it, there to live like a mandarin, but he will 
not be fired out of it. Never will he join the army of unem- 

16 



THE MYSTERY OF AH SING 17 

ployed; never will he stand humbly asking work. He is a 
monopoly, an institution, a friend. 

So far one gets with Ah Sing. To lose him would be like 
losing a beloved pipe or a comfortable pair of slippers. He 
belongs amid the furniture of living, and is as simple, homely, 
and admirable as grandpa's picture on the wall. But what is 
Ah Sing thinking about? What is going on across that gulf 
which separates him from us? How many transmigrations 
must we all go through before we could know Ah Sing as 
well as we know the family from Indiana which moved in 
next door last week? How shall we penetrate to the soul of 
Ah Sing? 

If we could answer these questions we could present our- 
selves forthwith at Washington with the solution of the 
world's most vexatious problem. But the answers are dark, 
Ah Sing is remote, and the East and the West have not yet 
met. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

" 1. In what respects is Ah Sing a mystery? 

2. Why did the author write about Ah Sing? 

3. What are Ah Sing's amusing characteristics? 

4. What are Ah Sing's best characteristics? 

5. Show that the author's language is original. 

6. Show that the essay increases in effect toward the end. 

7. How does the author avoid unkindness or satire? 
^8. How does the essay affect the reader? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. 


The Janitor 


11. 


Grandmother 


2. 


The Peanut Man 


12. 


The Milk Man 


3. 


The Auctioneer 


13. 


The Small Boy 


4. 


The Blind Man 


14. 


The Newspaper Man 


5. 


The Tramp 


15. 


The Usher 


6. 


The Old Soldier 


16. 


The Policeman 


7. 


The Violin Player 


17. 


The Street Sweeper 


8. 


The Dancing Teacher 


18. 


Mother 


9. 


The Scrub Woman 


19. 


The Neighbors 


10 


. The Baby 


20. 


Relatives 



18 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Write, with all kindness, about some one who amuses you. Do 
not include in your essay anything that will be in the nature of 
fault-finding or complaint. Point out, in a humorous way, the 
admirable and praiseworthy characteristics of the person about 
whom you write. Instead of writing a list of characteristics use 
original expressions that will indicate the real spirit of the character. 



OLD DOC 

By OPIE EEAD 

(1852 — ). An American journalist, noted for his worTc as 
Editor of The Arkansas Traveller. Among his books, most of 
which concern life in Arkansas, are : Len Gansett ; My Young 
Master ; An Arkansas Planter ; Up Terrapin Eiver ; A Kentucky 
Colonel; On the Suwanee Eiver; Miss Polly Lop; The Cap- 
tain's Eomance; The Jucklins. 

The character sketch is interesting for the same reason that gossip is 
interesting: we notice our neighbors and are curious to learn more 
about them. We are all sharp observers of our fellows. We see their 
oddities, their cranks, and their amusing habits just as clearly as we 
see their virtues. We laugh and we admire — in much the same spirit 
that a mother laughs at her baby, however much she loves it. 

Character sketches have been popular for many centuries. Chaucer's 
Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is really a series of shrewdly-true 
character sketches keenly tipped with humor, and full of genuine respect 
for goodness. Sir Thomas Overbury (1581-1613) wrote a number of 
strongly pointed sketches of character. A hundred jears later Joseph 
Addison and Sir Eichard Steele conceived the whimsical, good-hearted 
Sir Eoger de Coverley and his company of associates. 

Out of such work grew not only the character sketch of to-day but 
also material for the short story and the novel. 

Mr. Eead's presentation of the country doctor of the Old South is 
a striking example of the character sketch. Following the example 
set by Addison in 1711 Mr. Eead first describes the character and then 
teUs an anecdote that reveals personality. The entire sketch is redolent 
with good-humor. 

His house was old, with cedar-trees about it, a big yard, 
and in the corner a small office. In this professional hut 
there was only one window, the glass of which was dim with 
dust blown from the road. In the gentle breeze the lilacs and 
the roses swopped their perfume, while the guinea-hen arose 
from her cool nest, dug beneath the dahlias, to chase a katydid 
along the fence, and then with raucous cry to shatter the 
silence. The furnishings of the office were less than modest. 
In one corner a swayed bed threatened to fall, in another a 
wash-stand stood epileptic on three legs. Nailed against the 

19 



20 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

wall was a protruding cabinet, giving off sick-room memories. 
The village druggist, compounder of the essences of strange 
and peculiar "yarbs, " might have bitter and pungent medi- 
cines, but Old Doc, himself an extractor of wild juices, had 
discovered the secret of the swamp. To go into his office 
and to come forth with no sign was a confession of the loss 
of smell. Sheep-shearing fills the nostrils with woolly dull- 
ness, but sheep-shearers could -scent Old Doc as he drove along 
the road. 

In every country the rural doctor is a natural sprout from 
the soil. His profession is almost as old as the daybreak of 
time. He bled the ancient Egyptian, blistered the knight of 
the Middle Ages, and poisoned the arrow of the Iroquois. 
He has been preserved in fiction, pickled in the drama, spiced 
in romance, and peppered in satire; but nowhere was he so 
pronounced a character as in America, in the South. He 
knew politics, but was not a politician. He looked upon man 
as a machinist viewing an engine, but was not an atheist. 
He cautioned health and flattered sickness. He listened with 
more patience to an old woman harping on her trouble than 
to a man in his prime relating his experience. His books 
were few, and the only medical journal found in his office was 
a sample copy. When his gathered lore failed him, he was 
wise in silence. To confess to any sort of ignorance would 
have crippled his trade. It was an art to keep loose things 
from rattling in his head when he shook it, and of this art 
he was a perfect master. In raiment he was not over-adorned, 
but near him you felt that you were in the presence of clothes. 
Philosophy's trousers might bag at the knees, theology's 
black vestment might be shy a button, art might wear a burr 
entangled in its tresses, and even the majesty of the law 
might go forth in slippers gnawed by a playful puppy; but 
old doc 's ' ' duds, ' ' strong as they were in nostril penetration, 
must hug the image of neatness. He was usually four years 
behind the city's fashion, but this was shrewdly studied, for 
to dress too much after the manner of the flowing present 
would have branded him a foppish follower. The men might 
carp at his clean shirt every day, but it won favor with the 



OLD DOO 21 

women; and while robust medicine may steal secret delight 
from seeing two maul-fisted men punch each other in a ring, 
it must openly profess a preference for the scandals that 
shock society. 

At no place along the numerous roads traversed by old 
doc was there a sign-post with a finger pointing toward the 
attainment of an ultimate ambition. No senate house, no 
woolsack of greatness, waited for him. The chill of foul 
weather was his most natural atmosphere ; and should the 
dark night turn from rain to sleet, it was then that he heard 
a knock and a ' ' Hello ! " at his door. Down through the miry 
bottom-land and up the flint hillside flashed the light of his 
gig-lamp, striking responsive shine from the eye of the fasci- 
nated wolf. The farther he had to travel, the less likely was 
he to collect his bill. Usury might sell the widow's cow, for 
no one expected business to have a daintiness of touch; but 
if Doc sued for his fee, he was met even by the court with a 
sour look. 

A summons to court as an expert witness in a murder trial 
gold-starred the banner of his career. It was then that he 
turned back to his heavy book, used mainly to prop the door 
open. Out of this lexicon he dug up words to confound the 
wise lawyer. It was in vain that the judge commanded him 
to talk not like the man in the moon, but like a man of this 
earth ; he was not to be shaken from a pedestal that had cost 
him sweat to mount. The jury sat amazed at his learning. 
Asked to explain the meaning of a term, he would proceed 
to heap upon it a pile of incomprehensible jargon. It was 
like cracking the bones of the skeleton that stood behind his 
door, and giving to each splinter a sesquipedalian name. 
When told that he might "stand down," he walked off to 
enjoy his victory. At the tavern, in the evening, he might be 
invited to sit in the game, done with the hesitating timidity of 
awed respect; but at cards it was discovered that he was an 
easy dabbler in common talk, not to say the profanity of the 
flat-boatmen. 

Out of this atmosphere there arises the vision of old Doctor 
Rickney of Mississippi. He had appeared in court as an 



22 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

expert witness, and the county newspaper had given him. a 
column of monstrous words, written by the doctor himself. 
He had examined the judge for life insurance, and it was 
hinted that he had been invited to attend a meeting of the 
medical convention, away off in Philadelphia. His profes- 
sional cup was now about to foam over, when there fell an 
evil time. 

Bill Saunders, down with a sort of swamp fever, was told 
by Dr. Rickney that his recovery was impossible. Bill was 
stubborn, and declined to accept Doc's verdict. 

"Why, you poor old sot," said Doc, "you must be nearer 
the end than I thought, since you, have so little mind as to 
doubt my word. Here 's your fever so high that it has almost 
melted my thermometer, and yet you question my professional 
forecast. And, besides, don't you know that you have ruined 
your constitution with liquor 1 ' ' 

Bill blew a hot breath. 

' ' I don 't know nothin ' about constitutions nur the statuary 
of limitations, but I 'm snickered if I 'm goin' to die to 
please you nur nobody. All I need right now is possum baked 
along with about a peck of yams." 

' ' Possum ! Why, by eleven-thirty to-night you '11 be as 
dead as any possum. ' ' 

Bill drew another hot breath, and the leaves on a branch 
of honeysuckle peeping in at the open window were seen to 
wither with heat. 

"I 've got a hoss out thar in the stable, Doc, an' he 's jes 
as good as any hoss you ever rid. An' I tell you whut I '11 
do: I '11 bet him ag'in yo' hoss that I '11 be up an' around 
in five weeks." 

Doc gave him a pitying look. 

"All right; I '11 just take that bet." 

Doc told it about the neighborhood, and along toward mid- 
night, sitting in the rear room of a drug-store, he took out 
his watch, looked at it, and remarked: 

"Well, by this time Bill Saunders is dead, and his horse 
belongs to me. ' ' 

The druggist spoke. 



OLD DOC 23 

"I know the horse, and would like to have him. What '11 
you take for him, Doc?" 

"Take for him! That horse is worth a hundred and fifty 
of as bright gold dollars as was ever dug out of the earth. 
Take for him!" says he. "Ain't he worth it, Nick?" 

Nick, a yellowish lout, was sitting on the floor, with his 
back against the wall. For the most part his requirement of 
society was a mouthful of tobacco and a place to spit, and of 
the latter he was not over-careful. He added no more to 
civilization than worm-blight adds to a grape-vine, but with- 
out him no native drama could have been written. He was 
as native to the neighborhood as a wrinkle is to a ram's horn. 
In the absence of all other wit, he knew where his interest lay. 
Therefore he haggled not to respond to Doc's appeal. Doc had 
steadied his wife down from the high shakes of ague, had 
time and again reminded Nick of that fact, but had not yet 
received the five bushels of corn and the four pumpkins of 
average size, the physician's legitimate levy. Here was a 
chance on Nick's part to throw off at least two bushels. He 
arose, and dusted the seat of his brown jeans. 

"Doc," said he, "nobody don't know no mo' about nobody's 
hoss nur I do. An' I 'm sayin' it without the fear of bein' 
kotch in a lie that Bill's hoss is wuth two hundred an' 
seventy-fi' dollars of as good money as ever built a church." 

"You've heard him," was Doc's triumphant turn to the 
druggist. "But let me tell you. About a half -hour from 
now I 've got to catch the Lady Blanche for Memphis, on my 
way to attend the medical convention in Philadelphia. I 've 
got to read a paper on snake-bite. ' ' 

Nick broke in upon him. 

"I '11 bet it 's the Guv'ment that is a axin' you to do it." 

"Well, we won't discuss that," was Doc's dismissal of the 
subject. Then he turned again to the druggist. "Got to get 
to that convention ; and as I '11 have a good deal of entertain- 
ing to do, I '11 need a hundred extra. So you just give me a 
hundred dollars and take the horse. But you '11 have to be 
quick about it, for I just heard the Lady Blanche blowing 
around the bend." 



24 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

The druggist snatched at the knob of his safe, swung the 
door open, and seized a hundred dollars. 

One afternoon, five weeks later, when the Lady Blanche 
touched the shore on her way down. Old Doc stepped off. 
There on a bale of cotton, smoking a cob pipe, sat Bill 
Saunders. 

"Wy, hello. Doc!" 

Doc dropped his carpet-bag, caught up the tail of his coat, 
and with it blotted the sweat on his brow. 

"Fine day," said Bill. " 'Lowed we 'd have a little rain, 
but the cloud looked like it had business summers else. An' 
by the way. Doe, up whar you been what 's that liquor as 
distroys the constitution wuth by the gallon ? ' ' 

Doc reached down and took up his carpet-bag. 

"Bill Saunders, sir, I don't want anything to do with you. 
I gave you my confidence, but you have deceived me. And 
now, sir, your lack of integrity " 

"Gives me a boss," Bill interrupted. "An' say. Doc, I 
seed the druggist man jest now, an' he said suthin' about a 
hundred dollars you owed him." 

Doc walked up to the cotton-bale and placed his carpet-bag 
on it, close beside Bill. 

"Saunders," said he, "in this thing is a pistol nearly a foot 
and a half long. Now I '11 give you my horse all right, even 
if you are the most unreliable man I ever saw, and I '11 pay the 
druggist his hundred ; but if you go around the neighborhood 
boasting that you got well after I gave you up, something is 
going to flash, and it won't be out of a black bottle, either, 
but right out of Old Miss Betsy, here in this carpet-bag. I 
don't blame you for getting well, as a sort of a lark, you 
understand; but when you make a serious affair of it, you 
hurt my professional pride. Old Miss Betsy is right in here. 
Do you gather me ? " 

"I pick up yo' threads putty well. Doc, I think." 

' ' All right ; and see that with them threads you sew up your 
mouth. You may be proof against the pizen of the swamp, 
but you ain't proof against the jolt of a lead-mine. That 's 
all." 



OLD DOC 25 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. How does the description of the doctor's home emphasize 

character? 

2. What was the doctor's ability"? 

3. How does the writer make the doctor a universal character as 

well as a local character? 

4. How does the writer produce humor? 

5. How does the writer arouse our respect for the doctor? 

6. How does the writer arouse our sympathy? 

7. What character trait does the anecdote reveal? 

8. Why does the writer use so much conversation in telling the 

anecdote? 

9. What advantage does the writer gain by ending the sketch so 

abruptly ? 
10. How does the sketch affect the reader? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. 


The Druggist 


ai. 


The Teacher 


2. 


A Borrowing Neighbor 


'12. 


The Minister 


3. 


The Natural Leader 


13. 


The Policeman 


4. 


The Peanut Man 


14. 


The Expressman 


5. 


The Milkman 


15. 


The Freshman 


6. 


The Iceman 


16. 


The Senior 


7. 


The Conductor 


17. 


The College Student 


8. 


The Clerk 


18. 


The Elevator Boy 


9. 


The Postman 


19. 


The Farmer 


10. 


The Lawyer 


20. 


The Grocer 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Select for your subject a person in whom you see many laughable 
traits, but whom you really admire. Sum up his characteristics 
briefly and suggestively. Make your humor the kind that will 
awaken smiles but not ridicule. Use exaggeration in moderation. 
Be particularly careful to select words that will convey the half- 
humorous, half-serious thought that you wish to communicate. End 
your sketch by telling an anecdote that will emphasize one or more 
of the characteiistics that you have mentioned. Tell the anecdote 
in a "snappy" way, with crisp dialogue. 



CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 

By HELEN DAVENPOET 

(188S — ). Mrs. Helen Davenport Gibhons is a graduate of 
Bryn Mawr. Her literary work appears in various publications. 
Among her hooks are The Eed Eugs of Tarsus; Les Turcs ont 
Pa8s6 La ! ; A Little Gray Home in France ; Paris Vistas. 

A good essay is much like part of a conversation, — the part spoken 
by an interesting speaker. It is breezy, unconventional, and free in its 
use of familiar terms. How well all this is brought out in the following 
extract from an essay on Christmas. 

My husband and I would not miss that day-before-Christ- 
mas last-minute rush for anything. And even if I risk seem- 
ing to talk against the sane and humane " shop-early-for- 
Christmas" propaganda, I am going to say that the fun and 
joy of Christmas shopping is doing it on the twenty-fourth. 
Avoid tlie crowds ? I don 't want to ! I want to get right in 
the middle of them. I want to shove my way up to counters. 
I want to buy things that catch my eye and that I never 
thought of buying and would n 't buy on any day in the year 
but December twenty-fourth. I want to spend more money 
than I can afford. I want to experience that panicky feeling 
that I really have n 't enough things, and to worry over 
whether my purchases can be divided fairly among my 
quartet. I want to go home after dark, reveling in the flare 
of lamps lighting up mistletoe, holly wreaths, and Christmas- 
trees on hawkers' carts, stopping here and there to buy 
another pound of candy or a box of dates or a foolish bauble 
for the tree. I want to shove bundle after bundle into the 
arms of my protesting husband and remind him that Christ- 
mas comes but once a year until he becomes profane. And, 
once home, on what other winter evening would you find 
pleasure in dumping the whole lot on your bed, adding to the 

2@ 



CHEISTMAS SHOPPING 27 

jumble of toys and books already purchased or sent by 
friends, and, all other thoughts banished, calmly making the 
children's piles despite aching back and legs, impatient 
husband, cross servants, and a dozen dinaer-guests waiting 
in the drawing-room? 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. By what rhetorical means does the writer communicate her 

emotion ? 

2. Show how the writer makes detail contribute to effect. 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. 


Christmas Gifts 


11. 


Making Gifts for Friends 


2. 


Giving a Party 


12. 


Collecting 


3. 


New Year's Day 


13. 


Going to Games 


4. 


Fourth of July 


14. 


Buying a Hat 


5. 


Memorial Day 


15. 


Crowds 


6. 


Family Reunions 


16. 


Spending Money 


7. 


Answering Letters 


17. 


Hurrying 


8. 


Holidays 


18. 


Christmas Trees 


9. 


Vacation Days 


19. 


School Celebrations 


10. 


Callers 


20. 


Just Foolishness! 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Write on a subject in which you think you are, perhaps, excusably 
foolish. Be frankly honest and genuinely enthusiastic. Write in 
such a way that you will make your readers sympathize with you 
in your "foolishness." 



SUNDAY BELLS 

By GERTRUDE HENDERSON 

At different times Miss Henderson has lived in Indiana, 
California and New York. During the World War she gave 
active patriotic service. She contributes to various publi- 
cations. 

The bells of Sunday have given subjects to many poets and to many 
essayists. Their sound is full of suggestions of peace, calm and the 
solemnity of worship. 

The writer of the following essay expresses, as she says, the emotions 
of many people. It is that seizing upon what is, at the same time, 
intensely personal and yet universal that gives the essay its power. 

Although the essay is written in a gossipy style it has a quiet spirit 
entirely in harmony with its subject. 

Are all of us potentially devotees, I wonder. "When th<3 
bells ring and I look up to the aspiring steeples against the 
sky in the middle of a Sunday morning, or when I hear them 
sounding upon the quiet of the Sunday evening dusk or 
sending their clear-toned invitation out through the secular 
bustle of the mid-week streets and in at doors and windows, 
summoning, summoning, there is that in me that hears them 
and starts up and would obey. It must be something my 
grandmothers left there — my long line of untraceable grand- 
mothers back, back through the hundreds of years. I wonder 
if in all the other people of this questioning generation whose 
thoughts have separated them from the firm, sustaining cer- 
tainties of the past the same ghostly allegiance rises, the same 
vague emotions stir and quiver at the evoking of the Sunday 
bells. I should think it altogether likely, for I have never 
found that in anything very real in me I am at all different 
from everybody else I meet. 

The Sunday bells! I sit in the morning quiet and I hear 
them ringing near. They are not so golden-voiced, those first 
bells, as if they had been more lately made; but I think it 

28 



SUNDAY BELLS 29 

may be they go the deeper into my feelings for that. Some 
people pass, leisurely at first, starting early and strolling at 
ease through the peaceful Sunday morning on the way to 
church, talking together as they go: ladies, middle-aged and 
elderly, the black-dressed Sunday ladies whose serene wonted- 
ness suggests that they have passed this very way to that 
very goal one morning in seven since their lives began; a 
father with his boy and girl; three frolicsome youngsters 
together in their Sunday clothes loitering through the sunny 
square with many divagations, and chattering happily as 
they go, — I am not so sure their blithe steps will end at the 
church door, — but yet they may ; a young girl, fluttering pink 
ruffles and hurrying. I think she is going to sing in the 
choir and must be there early. She has the manner of one 
who fears she is already the least moment late for flawless 
earliness. Other young girls with their young men are walk- 
ing consciously together in tempered Sunday sweethearting. 
And so on and on till the bell has rung a last summons, and 
the music has risen, and given way to silence, and the last 
belated comers have hurried by, looking at accusing watches, 
and gone within, to lose their consciousness of guilt in that 
cool interior whose concern is with eternity, not time. 
Along all the other streets of the diverse town I fancy 
them streaming, gathering in at the various doors on one 
business bent, obeying one impulse in their many ways, 
one common, deep-planted instinct that not one of them 
can philosophize back to its ultimate, sure source, though it 
masters them all — the source that is deeper than lifelong 
habit or childhood teaching or the tradition of the race; the 
source out of which all these came in their dim beginnings. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. How does the writer show that her subject has universal appeal? 

2. Why does she describe people on their way to church? 

3. What types of people does she mention? 

4. How does the writer give the essay a quiet spirit? 

5. Point out examples of repetition. 

6. What is the effect of the last sentence? 



30 



MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. Organ Music 


11. Church Interiors 


2. The Violin 


12. Store Windows 


3. An Orchestra 


13. Sympathy with Sorrow 


4. A Brass Band 


14. Weddings 


5. Patriotic Songs 


15. Receptions 


6. Singing in Chorus 


16. The Dance 


7. A Procession 


17. Evening 


8. Going to Church 


18. A Stormy Night 


9. Marching 


19. Solitude 


10. Team Work 


20. Whistling 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 



Show that your subject is one that appeals to almost every person, 
and that it appeals to you in particular. Show the connection 
between your subject and various types of people. Give your essay 
a serious note, especially at the close. 



DISCOVERY 

By GEOEGES DUHAMEL 

(1884^-). A surgeon in the service of the "French army 
during the World War. He turned to authorship as a means 
of distraction from the horrors of war. His work entitled 
Civilization won the Goncourt Prize for Fiction. Among his 
other works are The New Book of Martyrs; Combat; Heart's 
Domain. 

An open eye and an attentive ear do much to make life enjoyable, — 
that is the thought of Georges Duhamel's essay on Discovery. It is 
evident that the writer deeply appreciates the pleasure of exploration, 
even though the exploration be among the humblest and least-noticed 
objects. Perhaps some recent experience turned his attention to the 
thought, "Discovery is delightful." At any rate, he has seized upon 
the idea, — as though it were one of the things that he has discovered, — 
and writes his meditation on it with the easy interest with which he 
observes the gravel in a bubbling brook or a lily floating on the surface 
of the water. 

Discovery ! It seems as if this word were one of a cluster 
of magic keys — one of those keys that make all doors open 
before our feet. We know that to possess is to understand, to 
comprehend. That, in a supreme sense, is what discovery 
means. 

To understand the world can well be compared to the peace- 
ful, enduring wealth of the great landowner; to make dis- 
coveries is, in addition to this, to come into sudden, overflow- 
ing riches, to have one of these sudden strokes of fortune 
which double a man's capital by a windfall that seems like 
an inspiration. 

The life of a child who grows up uneonstrainedly is a chain 
of discoveries, an enriching of each moment, a succession of 
dazzling surprises. 

I cannot go on without thinking of the beautiful letter I 

received to-day about my little boy. It said : 

Your son knows how to find extraordinary riches, inexhaustible 
treasures, even in the barrenest fields, and when I set him on the grass, 
I cannot guess the things he is going to bring out of it. He has an 

31 



32 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

admirable appreciation of the different kinds of soil; if he finds sand, 
he rolls in it, buries himself in it, grabs up handfuls, and flings them 
delightedly over his hair. Yesterday he discovered a mole-hole, and 
you cannot imagine all the pleasure he took in it. He also knows the 
joys of a slope which one can descend on one's feet or head over heels, 
or by rolling, and which is also splendid for somersaults. Every rise 
of ground interests him, and I wish you could see him pushing his cart 
up them. There is a little ditch where on the edge he likes to lie with 
his feet at the bottom and his body pressed tight against the slope. He 
played interminably the other day on top of a big stone. He kept 
stroking it; he had truly found a new pleasure there. And as for me, 
I find my wealth in watching him discover all these things. 

It is thus a child of fifteen months gives man lessons in 
appreciation. 

Unfortunately, most systems of education do their best to 
substitute hackneyed phrases for the sense of discovery. A 
series of conventions are imposed on the child ; he ceases to 
discover and experience the objects in the world in pinning 
them down with dry, formal labels by the help of which 
he can recognize them. He reduces his moral life little by 
little to the dull routine of classifying pins and pegs, and in 
this fashion begins the journey to maturity. 

Discover! You must discover in order to be rich. You 
must not be satisfied to accept the night good humoredly, to 
go to sleep after a day empty of all discovery. There are no 
small victories, no negligible discoveries; if you bring back 
from your day's journey the memory of the white cloud of 
pollen the ripe plantain lets fall in May at the stroke of your 
switch, it may be little, but your day is not lost. If you 
have only encountered on the road the tiny urn of jade which 
the moss delightedly balances at the end of its frail stem, it 
may seem little, but be patient. To-morrow will perhaps be 
more fruitful. If for the first time you have seen a swarm 
of bees go by in search of a hive, or heard tlie snapping pods 
of the broom scattering its seeds in the heat, you have nothing 
to complain of, and life ought to seem beautiful to you. If, 
on that same day, you have also enriched your collection of 
humanity with a beautiful or an interesting face, confess that 
you will go to sleep upon a treasure. 

There will be days when you will be like a peaceful sovereign 
seated under a tree: the whole world will come to render 



DISCOVERY 33 

homage to you and bring you tribute. Those will be your 
days of contemplation. 

There will be days when you will have to take your staff 
and wallet and go and seek your living along the highways. 
On these days you must be contented with what you gain 
from observing, from hunting. Have no fear: it will be 
beautiful. 

It is sweet to receive ; it is thrilling to take. You must by 
turns charm and compel the universe. When you have gazed 
long at the tawny rock, with its lichens, its velvety mosses, it 
is most amusing to lift it up. Then you will discover its 
weight and the little nest of orange-bellied salamanders that 
live there in the cool. 

You have only to lie among the hairy mints and the horse- 
tails to admire the religious dance of the dragon-fly going to 
lay its eggs in the brook, or to hear in early June the clamor- 
ous orgy of the tree-toads, drunk with love; and it is very 
pleasant, too, to dip one's hands in the water, to stir the 
gravel at the bottom, whence bubble up a thousand tiny, agile 
existences, or to pick the fleshy stalk of the water-lily that 
lifts its tall head out of the depths. 

There are people who have passed a plant a thousand 
times without ever thinking of picking one of its leaves and 
rubbing it between their fingers. Do this always, and you 
will discover hundreds of new perfumes. Each of these per- 
fumes may seem quite insignificant, and yet when you have 
breathed it once, you wish to breathe it again; you think of 
it often, and something has been added to you. 

It is an unending game, and it resembles love, this posses- 
sion of a world that now yields itself, now conceals itself. It 
is a serious, divine game. 

Marcus Aurelius,^ whose philosophy cannot be called futile, 
does not hesitate, amid many austere counsels, to urge his 
friends to the contemplation of those natural spectacles that 
are always rich in meaning and suggestion. He writes: 

* Marcus Aurelius (121-180). A Eoman emperor and soldier, author 
of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, a book of such wise and kindly 
philosophy that it is still widely popular. 



34 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

Everything that comes forth from the works of nature has its grace 
and beauty. The face wrinkles in middle age, the very ripe olive is 
almost decomposed, but the fruit has, for all that, a unique beauty. 
The bending of the corn toward the earth, the bushy brows of the lion, 
the foam that drips from the mouth of the wild boar and many other 
things, considered by themselves, are far from being beautiful; never- 
theless, since they are accessory to the works of nature, they embellish 
them and add a certain charm. Thus a man who has a sensitive soul, 
and who is capable of deep reflection, will see in whatever exists in the 
world hardly anything that is not pleasant in his eyes, since it is related 
in some way to the totality of things. 

This philosopher is right, as the poets are right. As our days 
permit us, let us reflect and observe ; let us never cease to see 
in each fragment of the great whole a pure source of happi- 
ness. Like children drawn into a marvelous dance, let us not 
relax our hold upon the hand that sustains us and directs us. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

I, 1. Point out examples of figurative language. 

2. Define what the writer meaas by "discovery." 

3. What is the value of discovery? 

4. What joy does a child possess that many grown people do not 

have? 

5. What criticism of modem education does the writer make? 

6. What is the writer's ideal of education? 

7. What sort of discoveries does the writer wish people to make? 

8. What powers does the writer wish people to cultivate? 

9. What sort of life does the writer admire? 

w 10. What is the advantage of quoting from Marcus Aurelius? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Experimenting 11. Study 

2. Travel 12. Collecting 

3. Work 13. Science 

4. Play 14. Astronomy 

5. Recreation 15. The Weather 

6. Exercise 16. The Stars 

7. Walking 17. Clouds 

8. Contests 18. Bees 

9. Religion 19. Cats 
10. Sympathy 20. Houses 



DISCOVERY 35 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Think of something you do that gives you real pleasure: that 
is your subject. Your object is to lead other people to share in 
what pleases you. 

Intimate, as the author does, what various thrills may be expe- 
rienced. Write enthusiastically, and, if possible, with charm. Do 
not command your reader, but entice him into the joys that you 
possess. Give a supporting quotation from some one whose words 
will be respected. 



THE FURROWS * 

By GILBERT K. CHESTERTON 

(1874). One of the greatest of living English essayists. He 
is notable for originality of thought and expression. His habit 
of turning ideas, as it were, "upside-down," makes his work 
peculiarly challenging. He has written under many types of 
literature. Among his books are Robert Browning ; Charles 
Dickens; Heretics; Tremendous Trifles; Alarms and Discur- 
sions; The Victorian Age in Literature. 

Many essays are like poems; from some subject that lies well within 
common experience they spring to a height of emotion. Such is the 
case with the essay that follows. Mr. Chesterton looked upon an 
ordinary plowed field. At once his imagination took fire and he saw 
in the field a significance, a beauty, that the everyday observer might 
not note. It is the interpretation of what Carlyle calls ' ' the ideal in 
the actual" that makes Mr. Chesterton's essay so appealing. 

As I see the corn grow green all about my neighborhood, 
there rushes on me for no reason in particular a memory of 
the winter. I say "rushes," for that is the very word for 
the old sweeping lines of the plowed fields. From some acci- 
dental turn of a train- journey or a walking tour, I saw sud- 
denly the fierce rush of the furrows. The furrows are like 
arrows; they fly along an arc of sky. They are like leaping 
animals ; they vault an inviolable hill and roll down the other 
side. They are like battering battalions; they rush over a 
hill with flying squadrons and carry it with a cavalry charge. 
They have all the air of Arabs sweeping a desert, of rockets 
sweeping the sky, of torrents sweeping a watercourse. Noth- 
ing ever seemed so living as those brown lines as they shot 
sheer from the height of a ridge down to their still whirl of 
the valley. They were swifter than arrows, fiercer than 
Arabs, more riotous and rejoicing than rockets. And yet they 
were only thin straight lines drawn with difficulty, like a 

* From ' ' Alarms and Diseursions, ' ' by Gilbert K, Chesterton. Copy- 
right, 1911, by Dodd, Mead and Company. 

36 



THE FUKEOWS Z% 

diagram, by painful and patient men. The men that plowed 
tried to plow straight; they had no notion of giving great 
sweeps and swirls to the eye. Those cataracts of cloven 
earth; they were done by the grace of God. I had always 
rejoiced in them; but I had never found any reason for my 
joy. There are some very clever people who cannot enjoy 
the joy unless they understand it. There are other and even 
cleverer people who say that they lose the joy the moment 
they do understand it. Thank God I was never clever, and 
could always enjoy things when I understood them and when 
I didn't. I can enjoy the orthodox Tory, though I could 
never understand him. I can also enjoy the orthodox Liberal, 
though I understand him only too well. 

But the splendor of furrowed fields is this: that like all 
brave things they are made straight, and therefore they bend. 
In everything that bows gracefully there must be an effort 
at stiffness. Bows are beautiful when they bend only be- 
cause they try to remain rigid; and sword-blades can curl 
like silver ribbons only because they are certain to spring 
straight again. But the same is true of every tough curve 
of the tree-trunk, of every strong-backed bend of the bough ; 
there is hardly any such thing in Nature as a mere droop 
of weakness. Rigidity yielding a little, like justice swayed 
by mercy, is the whole beauty of the earth. The cosmos is a 
diagram just bent beautifully out of shape. Everything tries 
to be straight ; and everything just fortunately fails. 

The foil may curve in the lunge ; but there is nothing 
beautiful about beginning the battle with a crooked foil. So 
the strict aim, the strong doctrine, may give a little in the 
actual fight with facts; but that is no reason for beginning 
with a weak doctrine or a twisted aim. Do not be an op- 
portunist; try to be theoretic at all the opportunities; fate 
can be trusted to do all the opportunist part of it. Do not 
try to bend, any more than the trees try to bend. Try to 
grow straight, and life will bend you. 

Alas! I am giving the moral before the fable; and yet I 
hardly think that otherwise you could see all that I mean in 



'38 MODEKN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

that enormous vision of the plowed hills. These great fur- 
rowed slopes are the oldest architecture of man ; the oldest 
astronomy was his guide, the oldest botany his object. And 
for geometry, the mere word proves my case. 

But when I looked at those torrents of plowed parallels, 
that great rush of rigid lines, I seemed to see the whole huge 
achievement of democracy. Here was more equality ; but 
equality seen in bulk is more superb than any supremacy. 
Equality free and flying, equality rushing over hill and dale, 
equality charging the world — that was the meaning of those 
military furrows, military in their identity, military in their 
energy. They sculptured hill and dale with strong curves 
merely because they did not mean to curve at all. They made 
the strong lines of landscape with their stiffly driven swords 
of the soil. It is not only nonsense, but blasphemy, to say 
that man has spoilt the country. Man has created the coun- 
try; it was his business, as the image of God. No hill, cov- 
ered with common scrub or patches of purple heath, could 
have been so sublimely hilly as that ridge up to which the 
ranked furrows rose like aspiring angels. No valley, confused 
with needless cottages and towns, can have been so utterly 
valleyish as that abyss into which the down-rushing furrows 
raged like demons into the swirling pit. 

It is the hard lines of discipline and equality that mark out 
a landscape and give it all its mold and meaning. It is just 
because the lines of the furrow are ugly and even that the 
landscape is living and superb. As I think I have remarked 
before, the Republic is founded on the plow. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Explain the figures of speech that occur in the essay. 

2. Why did Mr. Chesterton use so many figures of speech? 

3. How can you account for his poetic language? 

4. What leads him to think the furrows beautiful ? 

5. What meaning does the writer find in the plowed field? 

6. Explain in full the last paragraph of the essay. 

7. In what respect is the Republic "founded on the plow"? 



THE FUEROWS 39 

8. What does the essay show concerning Mr. Chesterton's per- 

sonality? 

9. In what respects is his style original? 
10. By what means does he gain emphasis? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. 


A River 


2. 


A Road 


3. 


A Cloud 


4. 


The Sunshine 


5. 


A Stone Wall 


6. 


A Horse 


7. 


A Tree 


8. 


A Garden 


9. 


A MountaiQ 


LO. 


The Wind 



11. 


A House 


12. 


A Book 


13. 


A Bridge 


14. 


A Railroad Track 


15. 


An Airplane 


16. 


A Flag 


17. 


A Pen 


18. 


A Valley 


19. 


A High Building 


20. 


A Telescope 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Take for your subject anything that is extremely familiar. Show 
your reader both the physical beauty that any one may observe and 
also the inner beauty that the average person is not so likely to 
note. Write in such a way that you will show your real emotions 
towards your subject. Make your essay rise steadily in power 
and let your last paragraph present the thought that you wish to 
leave with your reader. 



MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION * 

By HAMILTON WEIGHT MABIE 

(1846-1916). An American essayist and journalist, for many 
years editor of The Outlook. His literary worlc was so impor- 
tant that he was made a member of the American Academy of 
Arts and Letters. Among his booJcs are Nature in New 
England; My Study Fire; Short Studies in Literature; Essays 
on Books and Culture; The Life of the Spirit; Japan To-day 
and To-morrow. 

Essayists are natural lovers of books. In the records of human 
experience they find subjects that stimulate the imagination, arouse the 
sentiments, and lead to meditation. 

Almost every essayist draws largely, for the better illustration of 
his thought, from the field of literature. To him the characters of 
history or of fiction are almost as real as those of to-day. In the realm 
of books the essayist sees an expansion of the world in which he lives. 
In addition, he makes the acquaintance of others who have meditated 
on the many interests of life. He looks upon authors, living or dead, 
as upon a company of friends. In their companionship he gains 
unceasing delight. 

Mr. Hamilton Wright Mabie sets forward very pleasingly the way 
in which a reader may gain the most from books. 

There is a book in the British Museum which would have, 
for many people, a greater value than any other single volume 
in the world ; it is a copy of Florio 's translation of Montaigne,^ 
and it bears Shakespeare's autograph on a flyleaf. There 
are other books which must have had the same ownership; 

* From "Books and Culture," by Hamilton Wright Mabie. Copy- 
right by Dodd, Mead and Co. 

^ Florio 's Montaigne. John Florio (1553-1625). A teacher of French 
and Italian in Oxford University, who in 1603 translated the essays of 
Montaigne, one copy of which, autographed by Shakespeare, is in the 
British Museum in London. From him Shakespeare perhaps learned 
French and Italian. In all probability many of the passages of wit 
and wisdom in plays like Hamlet and The Tempest, as well as in other 
plays, were suggested by Florio 's translation of Montaigne. 

40 



MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION 41 

among them were Holinshed 's ' ' Chronicles, ' ' ^ and North 's 
translation of Plutarch.^ Shakespeare would have laid pos- 
terity under still greater obligations, if that were possible, if 
in some autobiographic mood he had told us how he read 
these books; for never, surely, were books read with greater 
insight and with more complete absorption. Indeed, the 
fruits of this reading were so rich and ripe that the books 
from which their juices came seem but dry husks and shells 
in comparison. The reader drained the writer dry of every 
particle of suggestiveness, and then recreated the material 
in new and imperishable forms. The process of reproduction 
was individual, and is not to be shared by others; it was the 
expression of that rare and inexplicable personal energy 
which we call genius; but the process of absorption may be 
shared by all who care to submit to the discipline which it 
involves. It is clear that Shakespeare read in such a way as 
to possess what he read; he not only remembered it, but he 
incorporated it into himself. No other kind of reading could 
have brought the East out of its grave, with its rich and 
languorous atmosphere steeping the senses in the charm of 
Cleopatra, or recalled the massive and powerfully organized 
life of Rome about the person of the great Caesar. Shake- 
speare read his books with such insight and imagination 
that they became part of himself; and so far as this proc- 
ess is concerned, the reader of to-day can follow in his 
steps. 

The majority of people have not learned this secret; they 
read for information or for refreshment ; they do not read for 
enrichment. Feeding one's nature at all the sources of life, 
browsing at will on all the uplands of knowledge and 
thought, do not bear the fruit of acquirement only ; they put 

* Holinshed 's Chronicles. Ealph Holinshed (?-1580?). Author of 
Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande, a book published in 
1577, from which Shakespeare drew material for many of his historical 
plays. 

'North's Plutarch. Sir Thomas North (1535?-1601?), translated 
from the French Plutarch's Lives, originally written in Greek in the 
first century A.D. From these remarkable biographies Shakespeare 
learned the stories that he embodied in such plays as Antony and Cleo- 
patra and Coriolanus. 



42 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

US into personal possession of the vitality, the truth, and the 
beauty about us. A man may know the plays of Shakespeare 
accurately as regards their order, form, construction, and 
language, and yet remain almost without knowledge of what 
Shakespeare was at heart, and of his significance in the his- 
tory of the human soul. It is this deeper knowledge, however, 
which is essential for culture; for culture is such an appro- 
priation of knowledge that it becomes a part of ourselves. It 
is no longer something added by the memory ; it is something 
possessed by the soul. A pedant is formed by his memory; 
a man of culture is formed by the habit of meditation, and 
by the constant use of the imagination. An alert and curious 
man goes through the world taking note of all that passes 
under his eyes, and collects a great mass of information, which 
is in no sense incorporated into his own mind, but remains 
a definite territory outside his own nature, which he has 
annexed, A man of receptive mind and heart, on the other 
hand, meditating on what he sees, and getting at its meaning 
by the divining-rod of the imagination, discovers the law 
behind the phenomena, the truth behind the fact, the vital 
force which flows through all things, and gives them their 
significance. The first man gains information ; the second 
gains culture. The pedant pours out an endless succession 
of facts with a monotonous uniformity of emphasis, and 
exhausts while he instructs; the man of culture gives us a 
few facts, luminous in their relation to one another, and 
freshens and stimulates by bringing us into contact with ideas 
and with life. 

To get at the heart of books we must live with and in them ; 
we must make them our constant companions ; we must turn 
them over and over in thought, slowly penetrating their inner- 
most meaning ; and when we pos'sess their thought we must 
work it into our own thought. The reading of a real book 
ought to be an event in one's history; it ought to enlarge the 
vision, deepen the base of conviction, and add to the reader 
whatever knowledge, insight, beauty, and power it contains. 
It is possible to spend years of study on what may be called 
the externals of the ' ' Divine Comedy, ' ' and remain unaffected 



MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION 43 

in nature by this contact with one of the masterpieces of the 
spirit of man as well as of the art of literature. It is also 
possible to so absorb Dante's* thought and so saturate one's 
self with the life of the poem as to add to one's individual 
capital of thought and experience all that the poet discerned 
in that deep heart of his and wrought out of that intense and 
tragic experience. But this permanent and personal pos- 
session can be acquired by those alone who brood over the 
poem and recreate it within themselves by the play of the 
imagination upon it. A visitor was shown into Mr. Lowell 's ^ 
room one evening not many years ago, and found him bar- 
ricaded behind rows of open books ; they covered the table 
and were spread out on the floor in an irregular but magic 
circle. "Still studying Dante?" said the intruder into the 
workshop of as true a man of culture as we have known on 
this continent. "Yes," was the prompt reply; "always 
studying Dante." 

A man's intellectual character is determined by what he 
habitually thinks about. The mind cannot always be con- 
sciously directed to definite ends; it has hours of relaxation. 
There are many hours in the life of the most strenuous 
and arduous man when the mind goes its own way and 
thinks its own thoughts. These times of relaxation, when 
the mind follows its own bent, are perhaps the most fruit- 
ful and significant periods in a rich and noble intellectual 
life. The real nature, the deeper instincts of the man, come 
out in these moments, as essential refinement and genuine 
breeding are revealed when the man is off guard and acts and 
speaks instinctively. It is possible to be mentally active 
and intellectually poor and sterile; to drive the mind along 
certain courses of work, but to have nq deep life of thought 
behind these calculated activities. The life of the mind 
is rich and fruitful only when thought, released from spe- 
cific tasks, flies at once to great themes as its natural objects 

* Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), an Italian poet, author of The Divine 
Comedy, a work of such surpassing merit that its author is regarded as 
one of the five greatest writers of all time. 

"James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). An American poet and essayist, 
noted for his love of books^ 



44 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

of interest and love, its natural sources of refreshment and 
strength. Under all our definite activities there runs a 
stream of meditation; and the character of that meditation 
determines our wealth or our poverty, our productiveness 
or our sterility. 

This instinctive action of the mind, although largely un- 
conscious, is by no means irresponsible; it may be directed 
and controlled; it may be turned, by such control, into a 
Pactolian stream,^ enriching us while we rest and ennobling 
us while we play. For the mind may be trained to meditate 
on great themes instead of giving itself up to idle reverie; 
when it is released from work it may concern itself with the 
highest things as readily as with those which are insignificant 
and paltry. Whoever can command his meditations in the 
streets, along the country roads, on the train, in the hours of 
relaxation, can enrich himself for all time without effort or 
fatigue; for it is as easy and restful to think about great 
things as about small ones. A certain lover of books made 
this discovery years ago, and has turned it to account with 
great profit to himself. He thought he discovered in the faces 
of certain great writers a meditative quality full of repose 
and suggestive of a constant companionship with the highest 
themes. It seemed to him that these thinkers, who had done 
so much to liberate his own thought, must have dwelt habitu- 
ally with noble ideas; that in every leisure hour they must 
have turned instinctively to those deep things which concern 
most closely the life of men. The vast majority of men are 
so absorbed in dealing with material that they appear to be 
untouched by the general questions of life ; but these general 
questions are the habitual concern of the men who think. In 
such men the mind, released from specific tasks, turns at once 
and by preference to these great themes, and by quiet medi- 
tation feeds and enriches the very soul of the thinker. And 
the quality of this meditation determines whether the nature 
shall be productive or sterile ; whether a man shall be merely 
a logician, or a creative force in the world. Following this 
hint, this lover of books persistently trained himself, in his 

• Pactolian Stream, a river in Asia Minor in which gold was found. 



MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION 45 

leisure hours, to think over the books he was reading; to 
meditate on particular passages, and, in the case of dramas 
and novels, to look at characters from different sides. It was 
not easy at first, and it was distinctively work ; but it became 
instinctive at last, and consequently it became play. The 
stream of thought, once set in a given direction, flows now of 
its own gravitation; and reverie, instead of being idle and 
meaningless, has become rich and fruitful. If one subjects 
"The Tempest," "^ for instance, to this process, he soon learns 
it by heart; first he feels its beauty; then he gets whatever 
definite information there is in it ; as he reflects, its construc- 
tive unity grows clear to him, and he sees its quality as a piece 
of art; and finally its rich and noble disclosure of the poet's 
conception of life grows upon him until the play belongs to 
him almost as much as it belonged to Shakespeare. This 
process of meditation habitually brought to bear on one's 
reading lays bare the very heart of the book in hand, and 
puts one in complete possession of it. 

This process of meditation, if it is to bear its richest fruit, 
must be accompanied by a constant play of the imagination, 
than which there is no faculty more readily cultivated or 
more constantly neglected. Some readers see only a flat sur- 
face as they read; others find the book a door into a real 
world, and forget that they are dealing with a book. The 
real readers get beyond the book, into the life which it de- 
scribes. They see the island in "The Tempest"; they hear 
the tumult of the storm ; they mingle with the little company 
who, on that magical stage, reflect all the passions of men 
and are brought under the spell of the highest powers of 
man's spirit. It is a significant fact that in the lives of men 
of genius the reading of two or three books has often provoked 
an immediate and striking expansion of thought and power. 
Samuel Johnson, * a clumsy boy in his father 's bookshop, 
searching for apples, came upon Petrarch,^ and was destined 

' The Tempest, one of Shakespeare 's most poetic comedies, written 
about 1611. 

^Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great literary leader of the 
eighteenth century, noted for his work as an essayist. 

'Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), one of the most noted Italian poeta. 



46 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

henceforth to be a man of letters. John Keats/" apprenticed 
to an apothecary, read Spenser's ''Epithalamium" " one 
golden afternoon in company with his friend, Cowden 
Clarke,^- and from that hour was a poet by the grace of God. 
In both cases the readers read with the imagination, or their 
own natures would not have kindled with so sudden a flash. 
The torch is passed on to those only whose hands are out- 
stretched to receive it. To read with the imagination, one 
must take time to let the figures reform in his own mind ; he 
must see them with great distinctness and realize them with 
great definiteness. Benjamin Franklin ^^ tells us, in that 
"Autobiography" which was one of our earliest and remains 
one of our most genuine pieces of writing, that when he dis- 
covered his need of a larger vocabulary he took some of the 
tales which he found in an odd volume of the "Spectator"^* 
and turned them into verse ; ' ' and after a time, when I had 
pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I 
also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, 
and after some weeks endeavoured to reduce them into the 
best order before I began to form the full sentences and com- 
pleat the paper." Such a patient recasting of material for 
the ends of verbal exactness and accuracy suggests ways in 
which the imagination may deal with characters and scenes in 
order to stimulate and foster its own activity. It is well to 
recall at frequent intervals the story we read in some drama- 
tist, poet, or novelist, in order that the imagination may set 
it before us again in all its rich vitality. It is well also as 
we read to insist on seeing the picture as well as the words. 

^*John Keats (1795-1821), an English poet especially noted for the 
rich beauty of his style. 

"Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599), the celebrated author of The Faerie 
Queen and of other poems noted for rich imaginative power. His 
Epithalamium, perhaps his best poem, was written in honor of his mar- 
riage to Elizabeth Boyle. 

"Cowden Clarke (1787-1877), an English publisher and Shakespearian 
scholar, a friend of John Keats. 

"Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), a great American philosopher and 
patriot whose life story is told in his Autobiography. 

" The Spectator, a daily paper published by Joseph Addison, Sir 
Richard Steele and others from March 1, 1711, to December 6, 1712. 



MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION 47 

It is as easy to see the bloodless duke before the portrait of 
"My Last Duchess," in Browning's ^^ little masterpiece, to 
take in all the accessories and carry away with us a vivid and 
lasting impression, as it is to follow with the eye the succes- 
sion of words. In this way we possess the poem, and make it 
serve the ends of culture. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What did Shakespeare gain from the reading of books'? 

2. What wrong ways of reading does Mr. Mabie point out? 

3. What is the difference between a pedant and a man of culture? 

4. What does Mr. Mabie mean by the expression, "To get at the 

heart of books"? 

5. What should a book do for a reader? 

6. Why does Mr. Mabie tell the anecdote of Mr. Lowell? 

7. Explain the difference between helpful meditation and idle 

reverie. 

8. What characteristics may be gained from great writers? 

9. What does Mr. Mabie mean by saying that one should read 

imaginatively? 
10. What does the essay show concerning the personality of Mr. 
Mabie? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Study and "Cramming" • 10. Respect and Insolence 

2. Fair Play and Trickery 11. Leisure and Hurry 

3. Selfishness and Unselfishness 12. Thrift and Waste 

4. School Spirit and Lack of 13. Courage and Cowardice 

School Spirit 14. Persistence 

5. Reasons for Success and for 15. Ambition 

Failure 16. Thoughtfulness 

6. The Gentleman and the Boor 17. Loyalty 

7. Kindness and Brutality 18. Will Power 

8. Care and Carelessness 19. Honor 

9. Promptness and Tardiness 20. The Kindly Life 

"Eobert Browning (1812-1889). One of the greatest of English 
poets. My Last Duchess is one of his many powerful dramatic mono- 
logues. 



48 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

You have noticed that Mr. Mabie began his essay by telling about 
Shakespeare's reading. He then set forward the ideal that Shake- 
speare's method of reading represents. You must follow the same 
plan. Begin your essay by telling of some one person who repre- 
sents in some way the ideal of which you write. That very specific 
example will lead your reader into the thought that you wish to 
emphasize, — that there is, in connection with your subject, an ideal 
method of proceeding, and a method that is less ideal. After you 
have made this specific introduction, set forward your own ideas. 
Do as Mr. Mabie did, and give many specific examples that will 
make your thought clear and emphatic. 



WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS?* 

By HENRY VAN DYKE 

(185S — ). One of the most popular American essayists. 
After many years of service as a Presbyterian minister he he- 
came Professor of English Literature in Princeton University. 
During the early part of the World War he was U. S. Minister 
to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, where his services were 
notably patriotic. His poems, essays and short stories have 
won wide and well-deserved popularity. Among them are The 
Poetry of Tennyson; The Other Wise Man; The First Christ- 
mas Tree; Fisherman's Luck; The Blue Flower; Out of Doors 
in the Holy Land; The Unknown Quantity; Collected Poems. 
Dr. Van DyTce was at one time President of the National In- 
stitute of Arts and Letters. 

Something of the spirit of sunset and of the quietness of the woods 
and mountains has crept into Dr. Van Dyke's essay. We sit with him 
and look off at the ridges and hollows of forest. We find our own 
thoughts about the beauty of earth expressed as we can not express 
them. We are lifted in meditation as Dr. Van Dyke was lifted when 
he looked off at the great hills. 

Power to reveal inner meanings in the world of outdoors and of man, 
and to ennoble the soul, is one of the reasons why the essay has such 
a high place in the affections of those who love literature. 

Who Owns the Mountains? shows both the felicity of Dr. Van Dyke's 
style and the nobility of his thought. 

It was the little lad that asked the question ; and the answer 
also, as you will see, was mainly his. 

We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our 
favorite fashion, following out that pleasant text which tells 
us to ''behold the fowls of the air." There is no injunction 
of Holy Writ less burdensome in acceptance, or more profit- 
able in obedience, than this easy out-of-doors commandment. 
For several hours we walked in the way of this precept, 
through the untangled woods that lie behind the Forest Hills 

* From ' ' Fisherman 's Luck, ' ' by Henry Van Dyke. Copyright, 1905, 
by Charles Scribner's Sons. 

49 



50 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

Lodge/ where a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and 
around the brambly shores of the small pond, where Mary- 
land yellow-throats and song-sparrows were settled; and 
under the lofty hemlocks of the fragment of forest across the 
road, where rare warblers flitted silently among the tree-tops. 
The light beneath the evergreens was growing dim as we came 
out from their shadow into the widespread glow of the sunset, 
on the edge of a grassy hill, overlooking the long valley of 
the Gale River, and uplooking to the Franconia Mountains. 

It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day 
shed a new tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The 
heart of the earth seemed to taste a repose more perfect than 
that of common days. A hermit-thrush, far up the vale, 
sang his vesper hymn; while the swallows, seeking their 
evening meal, circled above the riverfields without an effort, 
twittering softly, now and then, as if they must give thanks. 
Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps the mere 
absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road or 
laboring in the distant meadows, perhaps the blue curls of 
smoke rising lazily from the farmhouse chimneys, or the 
family groups sitting under the maple-trees before the door, 
diffused a sabbath atmosphere over the world. 

Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, "Father, 
who owns the mountains?" 

I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three 
lumber companies that had bought some of the woodland 
slopes; so I told him their names, adding that there were 
probably a good many different owners, whose claims taken 
all together would cover the whole Franconia range of hills. 

"Well," answered the lad, after a moment of silence, "I 
don't see what difference that makes. Everybody can look 
at them." 

They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the 
sharp peaks outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest 
sinking smoothly towards the valleys, the deep hollows gath- 

^ The scene mentioned in the essay is in the White Mountain region 
in New Hampshire, one of the most beautiful regions in the United 
States. 



WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS? 51 

ering purple shadows in their bosoms, and the little foothills 
standing out in rounded promontories of brighter green from 
the darker mass behind them. 

Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended 
itself back into the untrodden wilderness. Mount Garfield 
lifted a clear-cut pyramid through the translucent air. The 
huge bulk of Lafayette ascended majestically in front of us, 
crowned with a rosy diadem of rocks. Eagle Cliff and Bald 
Mountain stretched their line of scalloped peaks across the 
entrance to the Notch. Beyond that shadowy vale, the swell- 
ing summits of Cannon Mountain rolled away to meet the 
tumbling waves of Kinsman, dominated by one loftier crested 
billow that seemed almost ready to curl and break out of 
green silence into snowy foam. Far down the sleeping 
Landaff valley the undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled 
in the distant blue. 

They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The 
solemn groves of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty 
pines, the stately pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild 
ravines, the tremulous thickets of silvery poplar, the bare 
peaks with their wide outlooks, and the cool vales resounding 
with the ceaseless song of little rivers, — we knew and loved 
them all; they ministered peace and joy to us; they were 
all ours, though we held no title deeds and our ownership 
had never been recorded. 

What is property, after all? The law says there are two 
kinds, real and personal. But it seems to me that the only 
real property is that which is truly personal, that which we 
take into our inner life and make our own forever by under- 
standing and admiration and sympathy and love. This is 
the only kind of possession that is worth anything. 

A gallery of great paintings adorns the house of the 
Honorable Midas Bond,^ and every year adds a new treasure 
to his collection. He knows how much they cost him, and he 
keeps the run of the quotations at the auction sales, con- 

' Midas Bond. Greek legend tells of Midas, king of Phrygia, who had 
the power of turning into gold everything that he touched. ' * Bond ' ' 
ia, of course, a modern synonym for wealth. 



52 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

gratulating himself as the price of the works of his well- 
chosen artists rises in the scale, and the value of his art 
treasures is enhanced. But why should he call them his? He 
is only their custodian. He keeps them well varnished, and 
framed in gilt. But he never passes through those gilded 
frames into the world of beauty that lies behind the painted 
canvas. He knows nothing of those lovely places from which 
the artist's soul and hand have drawn their inspiration. 
They are closed and barred to him. He has bought the pic- 
tures, but he cannot buy the key. The poor art student who 
wanders through his gallery, lingering with awe and love 
before the masterpieces, owns them far more truly than 
Midas does. 

Pomposus Silverman ^ purchased a rich library a few years 
ago. The books were rare and costly. That was the reason 
why Pomposus bought them. He was proud to feel that he 
was the possessor of literary treasures which were not to be 
found in the houses of his wealthiest acquaintances. But the 
threadbare Biicherfreund,* who was engaged at a slender 
salary to catalogue the library and take care of it, became 
the real proprietor. Pomposus paid for the books, but 
Biicherfreund enjoyed them. 

I do not mean to say that the possession of much money is 
always a barrier to real wealth of mind and heart. Nor 
would I maintain that all the poor of this world are rich in 
faith and heirs of the kingdom. But some of them are. And 
if some of the rich of this world (through the grace of Him 
with whom all things are possible) are also modest in their 
tastes, and gentle in their hearts, and open in their minds, 
and ready to be pleased with unbought pleasures, they simply 
share in the best things which are provided for all, 

I speak not now of the strife that men wage over the def- 
inition and the laws of property. Doubtless there is much 
here that needs to be set right. There are men and women in 

* Pomposus Silverman. Another combination of a classical and a 
modern expression, — a haughty lord of silver. 

* Biicherfreund. Lover of books. 



WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS? 53 

the world who are shut out from the right to earn a living, 
so poor that they must perish for want of daily bread, so full 
of misery that there is no room for the tiniest seed of joy in 
their lives. This is the lingering shame of civilization. Some 
day, perhaps, we shall find the way to banish it. Some day, 
every man shall have his title to a share in the world's great 
work and the world's large joy. 

But meantime it is certain that, where there are a hundred 
poor bodies who suffer from physical privation, there are a 
thousand poor souls who suff'er from spiritual poverty. To 
relieve this greater suffering there needs no change of laws, 
only a change of heart. 

"What does it profit a man to be the landed proprietor of 
countless acres unless he can reap the harvest of delight that 
blooms from every rood of God's earth for the seeing eye and 
the loving spirit? And who can reap that harvest so closely 
that there shall not be abundant gleaning left for all man- 
kind? The most that a wide principality can yield to its 
legal owner is a living. But the real owner can gather from 
a field of goldenrod, shining in the August sunlight, an un- 
earned increment of delight. 

We measure success by accumulation. The measure is false. 
The true measure is appreciation. He who loves most has 
most. 

How foolishly we train ourselves for the work of life ! We 
give our most arduous and eager efforts to the cultivation of 
those faculties which will serve us in the competitions of the 
forum and the market-place. But if we were wise, we should 
care infinitely more for the unfolding of those inward, secret, 
spiritual powers by which alone we can become the owners of 
anything that is worth having. Surely God is the great 
proprietor. Yet all His works He has given away. He holds 
no title-deeds. The one thing that is His, is the perfect under- 
standing, the perfect joy, the perfect love, of all things that 
He has made. To a share in this high ownership He welcomes 
all who are poor in spirit. This is the earth which the meek 
inherit. This is the patrimony of the saints in light. 



54 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

"Come, laddie," I said to my comrade, "let us go home. 
You and I are very rich. We own the mountains. But we 
can never sell them, and we don't want to." 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. In what does real ownership consist? 

2. Why is it wrong to "measixre success by accumulation"? 

3. What is "spiritual poverty"? 

4. How may you truly own a book? 

5. How may you truly own a beautiful scene? 

6. How may you become a really rich person? 

7. How may you truly own a beautiful picture? 

8. How does Dr. Van Dyke introduce his principal thought? 

9. What is the spirit of the essay? 

10. Make a list of the most beautiful sentences. 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. The Fountain of Youth 11. Spendthrifts 

2. The Place of Happiness 12. Hidden Treasures 

3. A Wise Person 13. Angels in Reality 

4. Successful People 14. Real Strength 

5. A Truly Useful Life 15. My Own City 

6. A Wide Traveler 16. A Master of Men 

7. Comfort 17. Having One's Way 

8. The Best Medicine 18. A Wise Reader 

9. An Explorer in Daily Life 19. Heroism at Home 

10. Investing for the Future 20. Sunshine All the Time 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Show, in your essay, that all people have at their command some 
wealth, or some wonderful power, that they little suspect. Show 
how they may make use of the opportunity that lies before them. 
In order to do this, lead into your thought as naturally as Dr. Van 
Dyke leads into his. You will write more wisely and more sincerely 
if you set your thoughts in motion from some real experience, — 
from some time when you were genuinely impressed and uplifted in 
spirit. 



THE LEGENDARY STORY 
RUNNING WOLF 

By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD 

(1869 — ). An English author and journalist. He is a 
graduate of the University of Edinburgh. For a time he was 
on the staff of the New York Sun, and of the New York Timea. 
He is the author of The Lost Valley; Paris Garden; A Pris- 
oner in Fairyland; The Starlight Express. He writes with 
strongly suggestive power. 

The legend and its origin and development, are well illustrated in the 
story of Running Wolf. Some hundred years before the story begins, 
so the author says, certain tragic events had occurred in the Canadian 
backwoods. From those events had grown beliefs held by all who lived 
within the region. The author very cleverly makes his story a con- 
tinuation of the legend. 

Bunning Wolf deals not only with the beliefs of a primitive people 
but also with the supernatural. It suggests an unhappy, wandering 
spirit unable to escape from the chains of earth. In its treatment of 
the supernatural th« story is surpassingly powerful. It gains «very 
effect through the power of suggestion. At no time does the story, in 
so many words, say that the supernatural is present. Instead, it places 
the reader in a position where it is natural to infer something beyond 
the ordinary. In other words, the story does what life does: it presents 
facts and leaves people to draw their own conclusions. 

Over the entire story hangs an atmosphere entirely in keeping with 
the events narrated. The reader feels drawn into the solemn silence 
of the vast forest; he knows the loneliness of little-visited lakes, and 
the black terror that surrounds a wilderness camp-fire at night. 

The story is rich with foreshadowing, sentence after sentence pointing 
toward the climax and emphasizing the single effect that is produced. 

Because of its hauntingly suggestive power Running Wolf is a re- 
markable story of the supernatural. 

"Loneliness in a backwoods camp brings charm, pleasure, and a 
happy sense of calm until, and unless, it comes too near. Once it has 
crept within short distance, however, it may easily croas the narrow 
line between comfort and discomfort." 

The man who enjoys an adventure outside the general 
experience of the race, and imparts it to others, must not be 

55 



56 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

surprised if he is taken for either a liar or a fool, as Malcolm 
Hyde, hotel clerk on a holiday, discovered in due course. Nor 
is "enjoy" the right word to use in describing his emotions; 
the word he chose was probably "survive." 

When he first set eyes on Medicine Lake he was struck by 
its still, sparkling beauty, lying there in the vast Canadian 
backwoods; next, by its extreme loneliness; and, lastly — a 
good deal later, this — by its combination of beauty, loneliness, 
and singular atmosphere, due to the fact that it was the 
scene of his adventure, 

"It 's fairly stiff with big fish, ' ' said Morton of the Montreal 
Sporting Club. "Spend your holiday there — up Mattawa 
way, some fifteen miles west of Stony Creek. You '11 have it 
all to yourself except for an old Indian who 's got a shack 
there. Camp on the east side — if you '11 take a tip from me." 
He then talked for half an hour about the wonderful sport; 
yet he was not otherwise very communicative, and did not 
suffer questions gladly, Hyde noticed. Nor had he stayed 
there very long himself. If it was such a paradise as Morton, 
its discoverer and the most experienced rod in the province, 
claimed, why had he himself spent only three days there? 

"Ran short of grub," was the explanation offered; but to 
another friend he had mentioned briefly, "flies," and to a 
third, so Hyde learned later, he gave the excuse that his half- 
breed "took sick," necessitating a quick return to civiliza- 
tion. 

Hyde, however, cared little for the explanations; his in- 
terest in these came later. "Stiff with fish" was the phrase 
he liked. He took the Canadian Pacific train to Mattawa, 
laid in his outfit at Stony Creek, and set off thence for the fif- 
teen-mile canoe-trip without a care in the world. 

Traveling light, the portages did not trouble him; the 
water was swift and easy, the rapids negotiable; everything 
came his way, as the saying is. Occasionally he saw big fish 
making for the deeper pools, and was sorely tempted to 
stop; but he resisted. He pushed on between the immense 
world of forests that stretched for hundreds of miles, known 
to deer, bear, moose, and wolf, but strange to any echo 



RUNNING WOLF 57 

of human tread, a deserted and primeval wilderness. The 
autumn day was calm, the water sang and sparkled, the 
blue sky hung cloudless over all, ablaze with light. Toward 
evening he passed an old beaver-dam, rounded a little point, 
and had his first sight of Medicine Lake. He lifted his drip- 
ping paddle ; the canoe shot with silent glide into calm water. 
He gave an exclamation of delight, for the loveliness caught 
his breath away. 

Though primarily a sportsman, he was not insensible to 
beauty. The lake formed a crescent, perhaps four miles 
long, its width between a mile and half a mile. The slant- 
ing gold of sunset flooded it. No wind stirred its crystal 
surface. Here it had lain since the red-skin's god first made 
it; here it would lie until he dried it up again. Towering 
spruce and hemlock trooped to its very edge, majestic cedars 
leaned down as if to drink, crimson sumachs shone in fiery 
patches, and maples gleamed orange and red beyond be- 
lief. The air was like wine, with the silence of a dream. 

It was here the red men formerly "made medicine," with 
all the wild ritual and tribal ceremony of an ancient day. 
But it was of Morton, rather than of Indians, that Hyde 
thought. If this lonely, hidden paradise was really stiff 
with big fish, he owed a lot to Morton for the information. 
Peace invaded him, but the excitement of the hunter lay 
below. 

He looked about him with quick, practised eye for a camp- 
ing-place before the sun sank below the forests and the half- 
lights came. The Indian's shack, lying in full sunshine on 
the eastern shore, he found at once; but the trees lay too 
thick about it for comfort, nor did he wish to be so close 
to its inhabitant. Upon the opposite side, however, an ideal 
clearing offered. This lay already in shadow, the huge forest 
darkening it toward evening ; but the open space attracted. 
He paddled over quickly and examined it. The ground was 
hard and dry, he found, and a little brook ran tinkling down 
one side of it into the lake. This outfall, too, would be a 
good fishing spot. Also it was sheltered., A few low willows 
marked the mouth. 



58 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

An experienced camper soon makes up his mind. It was 
a perfect site, and some charred logs, with traces of former 
fires, proved that he was not the first to think so. Hyde 
was delighted. Then, suddenly, disappointment came to tinge 
his pleasure. His kit was landed, and preparations for put- 
ting up the tent were begun, when he recalled a detail that 
excitement had so far kept in the background of his mind — 
Morton's advice. But not Morton's only, for the storekeeper 
at Stony Creek had reinforced it. The big fellow with strag- 
gling mustache and stooping shoulders, dressed in shirt and 
trousers, had handed him out a final sentence with the bacon, 
flour, condensed milk, and sugar. He had repeated Mor- 
ton's half-forgotten words: 

"Put yer tent on the east shore. I should," he had said 
at parting. 

He remembered Morton, too, apparently. "A shortish 
fellow, brown as an Indian and fairly smelling of the woods. 
Traveling with Jake, the half-breed." That assuredly was 
Morton. "Didn't stay long, now, did he?" he added in a re- 
flective tone. 

"Going Windy Lake way, are yer? Or Ten Mile Water, 
maybe?" he had first inquired of Hyde. 

"Medicine Lake." 

"Is that so?" the man said, as though he doubted it for 
some obscure reason. He pulled at his ragged mustache 
a moment. "Is that so, now?" he repeated. And the final 
words followed him downstream after a considerable pause — 
the advice about the best shore on which to put his tent. 

All this now suddenly flashed back upon Hyde's mind 
with a tinge of disappointment and annoyance, for when 
two experienced men agreed, their opinion was not to be 
lightly disregarded. He wished he had asked the store- 
keeper for more details. He looked about him, he reflected, 
he hesitated. His ideal camping-ground lay certainly on 
the forbidden shore. What in the world, he wondered, could 
be the objection to it ? 

But the light was fading; he must decide quickly one way 
or the other. After staring at his unpacked dunnage and 



EUNNING WOLF 59 

the tent, already half erected, he made up his mind with 
a muttered expression that consigned both Morton and the 
storekeeper to less pleasant places. "They must have some 
reason," he growled to himself; "fellows like that usually 
know what they 're talking about. I guess I 'd better shift 
over to the other side — for to-night, at any rate." 

He glanced across the water before actually reloading. 
No smoke rose from the Indian's shack. He had seen no 
sign of a canoe. The man, he decided, was away. Re- 
luctantly, then, he left the good camping-ground and paddled 
across the lake, and half an hour later his tent was up, fire- 
wood collected, and two small trout were already caught 
for supper. But the bigger fish, he knew, lay waiting for 
him on the other side by the little outfall, and he fell asleep 
at length on his bed of balsam boughs, annoyed and dis- 
appointed, yet wondering how a mere sentence could have 
persuaded him so easily against his own better judgment. 
He slept like the dead ; the sun was well up before he stirred. 

But his morning mood was a very different one. The 
brilliant light, the peace, the intoxicating air, all this was 
too exhilara,ting for the mind to harbor foolish fancies, and 
he marveled that he could have been so weak the night be- 
fore. No hesitation lay in him anywhere. He struck camp 
immediately after breakfast, paddled back across the strip 
of shining water, and quickly settled in upon the forbidden 
shore, as he now called it, with a contemptuous grin. And 
the more he saw of the spot, the better he liked it. There 
was plenty of wood, running water to drink, an open space 
about the tent, and there were no flies. The fishing, more- 
over, was magnificent; Morton's description was fully jus- 
tified, and "stiff with big fish" for once was not an ex- 
aggeration. 

The useless hours of the early afternoon he passed dozing 
in the sun, or wandering through the underbrush beyond 
the camp. He found no sign of anything unusual. He 
bathed in a cool, deep pool; he reveled in the lonely little 
paradise. Lonely it certainly was, but the loneliness was part 
of its charm; the stillness, the peace, the isolation of this 



60 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

beautiful backwoods lake delighted him. The silence was 
divine. He was entirely satisfied. 

After a brew of tea, he strolled toward evening along the 
shore, looking for the first sign of a rising fish. A faint 
ripple on the water, with the lengthening shadows, made 
good conditions. Plop followed plop, as the big fellows rose, 
snatched at their food, and vanished into the depths. He 
hurried back. Ten minutes later he had taken his rods and 
was gliding cautiously in the canoe through the quiet water. 

So good was the sport, indeed, and so quickly did the 
big trout pile up in the bottom of the canoe that, despite 
the growing lateness, he found it hard to tear himself away. 
"One more," he said, "and then I really will go." He 
landed that "one more," and was in the act of taking it 
off the hook, when the deep silence of the evening was 
curiously disturbed. He became abruptly aware that some 
one watched him. A pair of eyes, it seemed, were fixed 
upon him from some point in the surrounding shadows. 

Thus, at least, he interpreted the odd disturbance in his 
happy mood ; for thus he felt it. The feeling stole over him 
without the slightest warning. He was not alone. The 
slippery big trout dripped from his fingers. He sat motion- 
less, and stared about him. 

Nothing stirred; the ripple on the lake had died away; 
there was no wind; the forest lay a single purple mass of 
shadow; the yellow sky, fast fading, threw reflections that 
troubled the eye and made distances uncertain. But there 
was no sound, no movement ; he saw no figure anywhere. 
Yet he knew that some one watched him, and a wave of 
quite unreasoning terror gripped him. The nose of the 
canoe was against the bank. In a moment, and instinctively, 
he shoved it off and paddled into deeper water. The watcher, 
it came to him also instinctively, was quite close to him 
upon that bank. But where 1 And who ? Was it the Indian ? 

Here, in deeper water, and some twenty yards from the 
shore, he paused and strained both sight and hearing to 
find some possible clue. He felt half ashamed, now that 
the first strange feeling passed a little. But the certainty 




The feeling stole over him without the slightest warning. He 
was not alone 



EUNNING WOLF 61 

remained. Absurd as it was, he felt positive that some one 
watched him with concentrated and intent regard. Every 
fiber in his being told him so ; and though he could dis- 
cover no figure, no new outline on the shore, he could even 
have sworn in which clump of willow bushes the hidden per- 
son crouched and stared. His attention seemed drawn to 
that particular clump. 

The water dripped slowly from his paddle, now lying across 
the thwarts. There was no other sound. The canvas of his 
tent gleamed dimly. A star or two were out. He waited. 
Nothing happened. 

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the feeling passed, and 
he knew that the person who had been watching him in- 
tently had gone. It was as if a current had been turned 
off; the normal world flowed back; the landscape emptied 
as if some one had left a room. The disagreeable feeling left 
him at the same time, so that he instantly turned the canoe 
in to the shore again, landed, and, paddle in hand, went over 
to examine the clump of willows he had singled out as 
the place of concealment. There was no one there, of 
course, or any trace of recent human occupancy. No leaves, 
no branches stirred, nor was a single twig displaced; his 
keen and practised sight detected no sign of tracks upon the 
ground. Yet, for all that, he felt positive that a little time 
ago some one had crouched among these very leaves and 
watched him. He remained absolutely convinced of it. The 
watcher, whether Indian, hunter, stray lumberman, or wan- 
dering half-breed, had now withdrawn, a search was useless, 
and dusk was falling. He returned to his little camp, more 
disturbed perhaps than he cared to acknowledge. He cooked 
his supper, hung up his catch on a string, so that no prowling 
animal could get at it during the night, and prepared to 
make himself comfortable until bed-time. Unconsciously, 
he built a bigger fire than usual, and found himself peering 
over his pipe into the deep shadows beyond the firelight, 
straining his ears to catch the slightest sound. He remained 
generally on the alert in a way that was new to him. 

A man under such conditions and in such a place need 



62 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

not know discomfort until the sense of loneliness strikes 
him as too vivid a reality. Loneliness in a backwoods camp 
brings charm, pleasure, and a happy sense of calm until, 
and unless, it comes too near. It should remain an ingredi- 
ent only among other conditions; it should not be directly, 
vividly noticed. Once it has crept within short range, how- 
ever, it may easily cross the narrow line between comfort 
and discomfort, and darkness is an undesirable time for 
the transition. A curious dread may easily follow — the dread 
lest the loneliness suddenly be disturbed, and the solitary 
human feel himself open to attack. 

For Hyde, now, this transition had been already accom- 
plished; the too intimate sense of his loneliness had shifted 
abruptly into the worse condition of no longer being quite 
alone. It was an awkward moment, and the hotel clerk 
realized his position exactly. He did not quite like it. He 
sat there, with his back to the blazing logs, a veiy visible 
object in the light, while all about him the darkness of 
the forest lay like an impenetrable wall. He could not see 
a foot beyond the small circle of his camp-fire ; the silence 
about him was like the silence of the dead. No leaf rustled, 
no wave lapped; he himself sat motionless as a log. 

Then again he became suddenly aware that the person 
who watched him had returned, and that same intent and 
concentrated gaze as before was fixed upon him where he 
lay. There was no warning; he heard no stealthy tread or 
snapping of dry twigs, yet the owner of those steady eyes 
was very close to him, probably not a dozen feet away. 
This sense of proximity was overwhelming. 

It is unquestionable that a shiver ran down his spine. 
This time, moreover, he felt positive that the man crouched 
just beyond the firelight, the distance he himself could 
see being nicely calculated, and straight in front of him. For 
some minutes he sat without stirring a single muscle, yet 
with each muscle ready and alert, straining his eyes in vain 
to pierce the darkness, but only succeeding in dazzling his 
sight with the reflected light. Then, as he shifted his posi- 
tion slowly, cautiously, to obtain another angle of vision, his 



RUNNING WOLF 63 

heart gave two big thumps against his ribs and the hair 
seemed to rise on his scalp with the sense of cold that shot 
horribly up his spine. In the darkness facing him he saw 
two small and greenish circles that were certainly a pair of 
eyes, yet not the eyes of Indian, hunter, or of any human 
being. It was a pair of animal eyes that stared so fixedly at 
him out of the night. And this certainty had an immediate 
and natural effect upon him. 

For, at the menace of those eyes, the fears of millions of 
long dead hunters since the dawn of time woke in him. 
Hotel clerk though he was, heredity surged through him in 
an automatic wave of instinct. His hand groped for a 
weapon. His fingers fell on the iron head of his small camp 
ax, and at once he was himself again. Confidence returned; 
the vague, superstitious dread was gone. This was a bear 
or wolf that smelt his catch and came to steal it. With be- 
ings of that sort he knew instinctively how to deal, yet ad- 
mitting, by this very instinct, that his original dread had 
been of quite another kind. 

"I '11 damned quick find out what it is," he exclaimed 
aloud, and snatching a burning brand from the fire, he 
hurled it with good aim straight at the eyes of the beast 
before him. 

The bit of pitch-pine fell in a shower of sparks that lit 
the dry grass this side .of the animal, flared up a moment, 
then died quickly down again. But in that instant of bright 
illumination he saw clearly what his unwelcome visitor was. 
A big timber wolf sat on its hindquarters, staring steadily 
at him through the firelight. He saw its legs and shoulders, 
he saw its hair, he saw also the big hemlock trunks lit up 
behind it, and the willow scrub on each side. It formed 
a vivid, clear-cut picture shown in clear detail by the momen- 
tary blaze. To his amazement, however, the wolf did not 
turn and bolt away from the burning log, but withdrew a 
few yards only, and sat there again on its haunches, staring, 
staring as before. Heavens, how it stared! He "shoed" it, 
but without effect; it did not budge. He did not waste an- 
other good log on it, for his fear was dissipated now, and a 



64 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

tijuber wolf was a timber wolf, and it might sit there as 
long as it pleased, provided it did not try to steal his catch. 
No alarm was in him any more. He knew that wolves were 
harmless in the summer and autumn, and even when 
"packed" in the winter, they would attack a man only when 
suffering desperate hunger. So he lay and watched the beast, 
threw bits of stick in its direction, even talked to it, wonder- 
ing only that it never moved. "You can stay there forever, if 
you like," he remarked to it aloud, "for you cannot get at 
my fish, and the rest of the grub I shall take into the tent 
with me," 

The creature blinked its bright green eyes, but made no 
move. 

"Why, then, if his fear was gone, did he think of cer- 
tain things as he rolled himself in the Hudson Bay blankets 
before going to sleep? The immobility of the animal was 
strange, its refusal to turn and bolt was still stranger. Never 
before had he known a wild creature that was not afraid 
of fire. Why did it sit and watch him, as with purpose in 
its dreadful eyes? How had he felt its presence earlier 
and instantly? A timber wolf, especially a solitary timber 
wolf, was a timid thing, yet this one feared neither man nor 
fire. Now as he lay there wrapped in his blankets inside 
the cozy tent, it sat outside beneath the stars, beside the 
fading embers, the wind chilly in its fur, the ground cool- 
ing beneath its planted paws, watching him, steadily watch- 
ing him, perhaps until the dawn. 

It was unusual, it was strange. Having neither imagina- 
tion nor tradition, he called upon no store of racial visions. 
Matter of fact, a hotel clerk on a fishing holiday, he lay 
there in his blankets, merely wondering and puzzled. A 
timber wolf was a timber wolf and nothing more. Yet this 
timber wolf — the idea haunted him — was different. In a 
word, the deeper part of his original uneasiness remained. 
He tossed about, he shivered sometimes in his broken sleep, 
he did not go out to see, but he woke early and unrefreshed. 

Again, with the sunshine and the morning wind, however, 
the incident of the night before was forgotten, almost un- 



EIJNNING WOLF 65 

real. His hunting zeal was uppermost. The tea and fish 
were delicious, his pipe had never tasted so good, the glory 
of this lonely lake amid primeval forests went to his head 
a little ; he was a hunter before the Lord,^ and nothing else. 
He tried the edge of the lake, and in the excitement of play- 
ing a big fish, knew suddenly that it, the wolf, was there. 
He paused with the rod, exactly as if struck. He looked about 
him, he looked in a definite direction. The brilliant sunshine 
made every smallest detail clear and sharp — boulders of 
granite, burned stems, crimson sumach, pebbles along the 
shore in neat, separate detail — without revealing where the 
watcher hid. Then, his sight wandering farther inshore 
among the tangled undergrowth, he suddenly picked up the 
familiar, half-expected outline. The wolf was lying be- 
hind a granite boulder, so that only the head, the muzzle, 
and the eyes were visible. It merged in its background. 
Had he not known it was a wolf, he could never have sepa- 
rated it from the landscape. The eyes shone in the sunlight. 

There it lay. He looked straight at it. Their eyes, in fact, 
actually met full and square. "Great Scot!" he exclaimed 
aloud, "why, it 's like looking at a human being!" And 
from that moment, unwittingly, he established a singular 
personal relation with the beast. And what followed con- 
firmed this undesirable impression, for the animal rose in- 
stantly and came down in leisurely fashion to the shore, where 
it stood looking back at him. It stood and stared into 
his eyes like some great wild dog, so that he was aware of a 
new and almost incredible sensation — that it courted recog- 
nition, 

"Well! well!" he exclaimed again, relieving his feelings 
by addressing it aloud, "if this doesn't beat everything I 
ever saw ! What d ' you want, anyway ? ' ' 

He examined it now more carefully. He had never seen 
a wolf so big before ; it was a tremendous beast, a nasty cus- 
tomer to tackle, he reflected, if it ever came to that. It 
stood there absolutely fearless and full of confidence. In 

*A reference to Genesis 10:9, where Nimrod is called "a mighty 
hunter before the Lord. ' ' 



66 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

the clear sunlight he took in every detail of it — a huge, 
shaggy, lean-flanked timber wolf, its wicked eyes staring 
straight into his own, almost with a kind of purpose in 
them. He saw its great jaws, its teeth, and its tongue, hung 
out, dropping saliva a little. And yet the idea of its savagery, 
its fierceness, was very little in him. 

He was amazed and puzzled beyond belief. He wished 
the Indian would come back. He did not understand this 
strange behavior in an animal. Its eyes, the odd expres- 
sion in them, gave him a queer, unusual, difficult feeling. 
Had his nerves gone wrong ? he almost wondered. 

The beast stood on the shore and looked at him. He 
wished for the first time that he had brought a rifle. With 
a resounding smack he brought his paddle down flat upon 
the water, using all his strength, till the echoes rang as 
from a pistol-shot that was audible from one end of the lake 
to the other. The wolf never stirred. He shouted, but the 
beast remained unmoved. He blinked his eyes, speaking as 
to a dog, a domestic animal, a creature accustomed to human 
ways. It blinked its eyes in return. 

At length, increasing his distance from the shore, he con- 
tinued fishing, and the excitement of the marvelous sport 
held his attention — his surface attention, at any rate. At 
times he almost forgot the attendant beast; yet whenever 
he looked up, he saw it there. And worse; when he slowly 
paddled home again, he obsei-ved it trotting along the shore 
as though to keep him company. Crossing a little bay, he 
spurted, hoping to reach the other point before his undesired 
and undesirable attendant. Instantly the brute broke into 
that rapid, tireless lope that, except on ice, can run down 
anything on four legs in the woods. When he reached the 
distant point, the wolf was waiting for him. He raised 
his paddle from the water, pausing a moment for reflection ; 
for this very close attention — there were dusk and night 
yet to come — he certainly did not relish. His camp was near ; 
he had to land; he felt uncomfortable even in the sunshine 
of broad day, when, to his keen relief, about half a mile 
from the tent, he saw the creature suddenly stop and sit 



EUNNING WOLF 67 

down in the open. He waited a moment, then paddled on. 
It did not follow. There was no attempt to move; it merely 
sat and watched him. After a few hundred yards, he looked 
back. It was: still sitting where he left it. And the 
absurd, yet significant, feeling came to him that the beast 
divined his thought, his anxiety, his dread, and was now 
showing him, as well as it could, that it entertained no 
hostile feeling and did not meditate attack. 

He turned the canoe toward the shore; he landed; he 
cooked his supper in the dusk ; the animal made no sign. 
Not far away it certainly lay and watched, but it did not 
advance. And to Hyde, observant now in a new way, came 
one sharp, vivid reminder of the strange atmosphere into 
which his commonplace personality had strayed : he suddenly 
recalled that his relations with the beast, already established, 
had progressed distinctly a stage further. This startled him, 
yet without the accompanying alarm he must certainly have 
felt twenty-four hours before. He had an understanding 
with the wolf. He was aware of friendly thoughts toward 
it. He even went so far as to set out a few big fish on 
the spot where he had first seen it sitting the previous night. 
"If he comes," he thought, "he is welcome to them. I 've 
got plenty, anyway." He thought of it now as "he." 

Yet the wolf made no appearance until he was in the 
act of entering his tent a good deal later. It was close 
on ten o'clock, whereas nine was his hour, and late at that, 
for turning in. He had, therefore, unconsciously been wait- 
ing for him. Then, as he was closing the flap, he saw the 
eyes close to where he had placed the fish. He waited, hiding 
himself, and expecting to hear sounds of munching jaws; 
but all was silence. Only the eyes glowed steadily out of the 
background of pitch darkness. He closed the flap. He 
had no slightest fear. In ten minutes he was sound asleep. 

He could not have slept very long, for when he woke up 
he could see the sliine of a faint red light through the canvas, 
and the fire had not died down completely. He rose and 
cautiously peeped out. The air was very cold; he saw his 
breath. But he also saw the wolf, for it had come in, and 



68 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

was sitting by the dying embers, not two yards away from. 
where he crouched behind the flap. And this time, at these 
very close quarters, there was something in the attitude o2 
the big wild thing that caught his attention with a vivid 
thrill of startled surprise and a sudden shock of cold that 
held him spellbound. He stared, unable to believe his eyes; 
for the wolf's attitude conveyed to him something familiar 
that at first he was unable to explain. Its pose reached him 
in the terms of another thing with which he was entirely at 
home. What was it? Did his senses betray him? Was he 
still asleep and dreaming? 

Then, suddenly, with a start of uncanny recognition, he 
knew. Its attitude was that of a dog. Having found the 
clue, his mind then made an awful leap. For it was, after 
all, no dog its appearance aped, but something nearer to 
himself, and more familiar still. Good heavens ! It sat there 
with the pose, the attitude, the gesture in repose of some- 
thing almost human. And then, with a second shock of 
biting wonder, it came to him like a revelation. The wolf 
sat beside that camp-fire as a man might sit. 

Before he could weigh his extraordinary discovery, before 
he could examine it in detail or with care, the animal, sitting 
in this ghastly fashion, seemed to feel his eyes fixed on it. It 
slowly turned and looked him in the face, and for the first 
time Hyde felt a full-blooded, superstitious fear flood through 
his entire being. He seemed transfixed with that nameless 
terror that is said to attack human beings who suddenly face 
the dead, finding themselves bereft of speech and move- 
ment. This moment of paralysis certainly occurred. Its 
passing, however, was as singular as its advent. For almost 
at once he was aware of something beyond and above this 
mockery of human attitude and pose, something that ran 
along unaccustomed nerves and reached his feeling, even 
perhaps his heart. The revulsion was extraordinary, its re- 
sult still more extraordinary and unexpected. Yet the fact 
remains. He was aware of another thing that had the effect 
of stilling his terror as soon as it was born. He was aware 
of appeal, silent, half -expressed, yet vastly pathetic. He saw 



EUNNING WOLF 69 

in the savage eyes a beseeching, even a yearning, expression 
that changed his mood as by magic from dread to natural 
sympathy. The great gray brute, symbol of cruel ferocity, 
sat there beside his dying fire and appealed for help. 

This gulf betwixt animal and human seemed in that in- 
stant bridged. It was, of course, incredible. Hyde, sleep still 
possibly clinging to his inner being with the shades and 
half -shapes of dream yet about his soul, acknowledged, how 
he knew not, the amazing fact. He found himself nodding to 
the brute in half-consent, and instantly, without more ado, 
the lean gray shape rose like a wraith and trotted off swiftly, 
but with stealthy tread into the background of the night. 

When Hyde woke in the morning his first impression was 
that he must have dreamed the entire incident. His prac- 
tical nature asserted itself. There was a bite in the fresh 
autumn air ; the bright sun allowed no half-lights anywhere ; 
he felt brisk in mind and body. Reviewing what had hap- 
pened, he came to the conclusion that it was utterly vain 
to speculate ; no possible explanation of the animal 's behavior 
occurred to him: he was dealing with something entirely 
outside his experience. His fear, however, had completely 
left him. The odd sense of friendliness remained. The beast 
had a definite purpose, and he himself was included in that 
purpose. His sympathy held good. 

But with the sympathy there was also an intense curiosity. 
"If it shows itself again," he told himself, "I '11 go up 
close and find out what it wants." The fish laid out the 
night before had not been touched. 

It must have been a full hour after breakfast when he 
next saw the brute; it was standing on the edge of the 
clearing, looking at him in the way now become familiar. 
Hyde immediately picked up his ax and advanced toward 
it boldly, keeping his eyes fixed straight upon its own. There 
was nervousness in him, but kept well under; nothing be- 
trayed it; step by step he drew nearer until some ten yards 
separated them. The wolf had not stirred a muscle as yet. 
Its jaws hung open, its eyes observed him intently; it al- 
lowed him to approach without a sign of what its mood might 



70 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

be. Then, with these ten yards between them, it turned 
abruptly and moved slowly off, looking back first over one 
shoulder and then over the other, exactly as a dog might 
do, to see if he was following. 

A singular journey it was they then made together, animal 
and man. The trees surrounded them at once, for they left 
the lake behind them, entering the tangled bush beyond. 
The beast, Hyde noticed, obviously picked the easiest track 
for him to follow; for obstacles that meant nothing to the 
four-legged expert, yet were difficult for a man, were care- 
fully avoided with an almost uncanny skill, while yet the 
general direction was accurately kept. Occasionally there 
were windfalls to be surmounted; but though the wolf 
bounded over these with ease, it was always waiting for the 
man on the other side after he had laboriously climbed over. 
Deeper and deeper into the heart of the lonely forest they 
penetrated in this singular fashion, cutting across the arc 
of the lake's crescent, it seemed to Hyde; for after two miles 
or so, he recognized the big rocky bluff that overhung the 
water at its northern end. This outstanding bluff he had 
seen.from his camp, one side of it falling sheer into the water ; 
it was probably the spot, he imagined, where the Indians 
held their medicine-making ceremonies, for it stood out in 
isolated fashion, and its top formed a private plateau not 
easy of access. And it was here, close to a big spruce at 
the foot of the bluff upon the forest side, that the wolf 
stopped suddenly and for the first time since its appear- 
ance gave audible expression to its feelings. It sat down 
on its haunches, lifted its muzzle with open jaws, and gave 
vent to a subdued and long-drawn howl that was more like 
the wail of a dog than the fierce barking cry associated with 
a wolf. 

By this time Hyde had lost not only fear, but caution, too ; 
nor, oddly enough, did this warning howl revive a sign of 
unwelcome emotion in him. In that curious sound he de- 
tected the same message that the eyes conveyed — appeal for 
help. He paused, nevertheless, a little startled, and while 
the wolf sat waiting for him, he looked about him quickly. 



EUNNING WOLF 71 

There was young timber here; it had once been a small 
clearing, evidently. Ax and fire had done their work, but 
there was evidence to an experienced eye that it was Indians 
and not white men who had once been busy here. Some 
part of the medicine ritual, doubtless, took place in the little 
clearing, thought the man, as he advanced again toward his 
patient leader. The end of their queer journey, he felt, was 
close at hand. 

He had not taken two steps before the animal got up and 
moved very slowly in the direction of some low bushes that 
formed a clump just beyond. It entered these, first looking 
back to make sure that its companion watched. The bushes 
hid it ; a moment later it emerged again. Twice it performed 
this pantomime, each time, as it reappeared, standing still and 
staring at the man with as distinct an expression of appeal 
in the eyes as an animal may compass, probably. Its ex- 
citement, meanwhile, certainly increased, and this excitement 
was, with equal certainty, communicated to the man. Hyde 
made up his mind quickly. Gripping his ax tightly, and 
ready to use it at the first hint of malice, he moved slowly 
nearer to the bushes, wondering with something of a tremor 
what would happen. 

If he expected to be startled, his expectation was at once 
fulfilled; but it was the behavior of the beast that made him 
jump. It positively frisked about him like a happy dog. 
It frisked for joy. Its excitement was intense, yet from 
its open mouth no sound was audible. With a sudden leap, 
then, it bounded past him into the clump of bushes, against 
whose very edge he stood and began scraping vigorously at 
the ground. Hyde stood and stared, amazement and in- 
terest now banishing all his nervousness, even when the 
beast, in its violent scraping, actually touched his body 
with its own. He had, perhaps, the feeling that he was 
in a dream, one of those fantastic dreams in which things 
may happen without involving an adequate surprise ; for 
otherwise the manner of scraping and scratching at the 
ground must have seemed an impossible phenomenon. No 
wolf, no dog certainly, used its paws in the way those paws 



72 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

were working. Hyde had the odd, distressing sensation 
that it was hands, not paws, he watched. And yet, somehow, 
the natural, adequate surprise he should have felt, was absent. 
The strange action seemed not entirely unnatural. In his 
heart some deep hidden spring of sympathy and pity stirred 
instead. He was aware of pathos. 

The wolf stopped in its task and looked up into his face. 
Hyde acted without hesitation then. Afterward he was 
wholly at a loss to explain his own conduct. It seemed he 
knew what to do, divined what was asked, expected of him. 
Between his mind and the dumb desire yearning through 
the savage animal there was intelligent and intelligible com- 
munication. He cut a stake and sharpened it, for the stones 
would blunt his ax-edge. He entered the clump of bushes 
to complete the digging his four-legged companion had be- 
gun. And while he worked, though he did not forget the 
close proximity of the wolf, he paid no attention to it; often 
his back was turned as he stooped over the laborious clear- 
ing away of the hard earth ; no uneasiness or sense of danger 
was in him any more. The wolf sat outside the clump and 
watched the operations. Its concentrated attention, its pa- 
tience, its intense eagerness, the gentleness and docility of 
the gray, fierce, and probably hungry brute, its obvious 
pleasure and satisfaction, too, at having won the human to 
its mysterious purpose — these were colors in the strange pic- 
ture that Hyde thought of later when dealing with the human 
herd in his hotel again. At the moment he was aware chiefly 
of pathos and affection. The whole business was, of course, 
not to be believed, but that discovery came later, too, when 
telling it to others. 

The digging continued for fully half an hour before his 
labor was rewarded by the discovery of a small whitish object. 
He picked it up and examined it — the finger-bone of a man. 
Other discoveries then followed quickly and in quantity. The 
cache was laid bare. He collected nearly the complete skele- 
ton. The skull, however, he found last, and might not have 
found at all but for the guidance of his strangely alert com- 
panion. It lay some few yards away from the central hole 



BUKNING WOLF 73 

now dug, and the wolf stood nuzzling the ground with its nose 
before Hyde understood that he was meant to dig exactly 
in that spot for it. Between the beast's very paws his 
stake struck hard upon it. He scraped the earth from the 
bone and examined it carefully. It was perfect, save for 
the fact that some wild animal had gnawed it, the teeth- 
marks being still plainly visible. Close beside it lay the rusty 
iron head of a tomahawk. This and the smallness of the bones 
confirmed him in his judgment that it was the skeleton not of 
a white man, but of an Indian. 

During the excitement of the discovery of the bones one 
by one, and finally of the skull, but, more especially, during 
the period of intense interest while Hyde was examining 
them, he had paid little, if any, attention to the wolf. He 
was aware that it sat and watched him, never moving its 
keen eyes for a single moment from the actual operations, but 
of sign or movement it made none at all. He knew that it 
was pleased and satisfied, he knew also that he had now 
fulfilled its purpose in a great measure. The further in- 
tuition that now came to him, derived, he felt positive, from 
his companion's dumb desire, was perhaps the cream of 
the entire experience to him. Gathering the bones together 
in his coat, he carried them, together with the tomahawk, 
to the foot of the big spruce where the animal had first 
stopped. His leg actually touched the creature's muzzle as 
he passed. It turned its head to watch, but did not follow, 
nor did it move a muscle while he prepared the platform 
of boughs upon which he then laid the poor worn bones 
of an Indian who had been killed, doubtless, in sudden at- 
tack or ambush, and to whose remains had been denied the 
last grace of proper tribal burial. He wrapped the bones in 
bark ; he laid the tomahawk beside the skull ; he lit the circular 
fire round the pyre, and the blue smoke rose upward into 
the clear bright sunshine of the Canadian autumn morning 
till it was lost among the mighty trees far overhead. 

In the moment before actually lighting the little fire 
he had turned to note what his companion did. It sat five 
yards away, he saw, gazing intently, and one of its front 



74 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

paws was raised a little from the ground. It made no 
sign of any kind. He finished the work, becoming so absorbed 
in it that he had eyes for nothing but the tending and guard- 
ing of his careful ceremonial fire. It was only when the 
platform of boughs collapsed, laying their charred burden 
gently on the fragrant earth among the soft wood ashes, 
that he turned again, as though to show the wolf what 
he had done, and seek, perhaps, some look of satisfaction 
in its curiously expressive eyes. But the place he searched 
was empty. The wolf had gone. 

He did not see it again; it gave no sign of its presence 
anywhere ; he was not watched. He fished as before, wan- 
dered through the bush about his camp, sat smoking round 
his fire after dark, and slept peacefully in his cozy little 
tent. He was not disturbed. No howl was ever audible in 
the distant forest, no twig snapped beneath a stealthy tread, 
he saw no eyes. The wolf that behaved like a man had gone 
forever. 

It was the day before he left that Hyde, noticing smoke 
rising from the shack across the lake, paddled over to 
exchange a word or two with the Indian, who had evidently 
now returned. The redskin came down to meet him as he 
landed, but it was soon plain that he spoke very little English. 
He emitted the familiar grunts at first ; then bit by bit Hyde 
stirred his limited vocabulary into action. The net result, 
however, was slight enough, though it was certainly direct: 

"You camp there?" the man asked, pointing to the other 
side. 

"Yes." 

"Wolf come?" 

"Yes." 

"You see wolf?" 

"Yes." 

The Indian stared at him fixedly a moment, a keen, won- 
dering look upon his coppery, creased face. 

"You 'fraid wolf?" he asked after a moment's pause. 

"No," replied Hyde, truthfully. He knew it was use- 
less to ask questions of his own, though he was eager for 



EUNNING WOLF 75 

information. The other would have told him nothing. It 
was sheer luck that the man had touched on the subject 
at all, and Hyde realized that his own best role was merely 
to answer, but to ask no questions. Then, suddenly, the 
Indian became comparatively voluble. There was awe in 
his voice and manner. 

"Him no wolf. Him big medicine wolf. Him spirit 
wolf." 

Whereupon he drank the tea the other had brewed for 
him, closed his lips tightly, and said no more. His out- 
line was discernible on the shore, rigid and motionless, an 
hour later, when Hyde's canoe turned the corner of the lake 
three miles away, and landed to make the portages up the 
first rapid of his homeward stream. 

It was Morton who, after some persuasion, supplied further 
details of what he called the legend. Some hundred years 
before, the tribe that lived in the territory beyond the 
lake began their annual medicine-making ceremonies on the 
big rocky bluff at the northern end; but no medicine could 
be made. The spirits, declared the chief medicine man, would 
not answer. They were offended. An investigation followed. 
It was discovered that a young brave had recently killed a 
wolf, a thing strictly forbidden, since the wolf was the totem 
animal of the tribe. To make matters worse, the name of 
the guilty man was Running Wolf. The offense being un- 
pardonable, the man was cursed and driven from the tribe: 

"Go out. Wander alone among the woods, and if we see 
you, we slay you. Your bones shall be scattered in the for- 
est, and your spirit shall not enter the Happy Hunting 
Grounds till one of another race shall find and bury them." 

"Which meant," explained Morton, laconically, his only 
comment on the story, "probably forever." 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Show that the suggestions of the supernatural rise with cumu- 

lative power. 

2. How does the author make the setting contribute to the effect 

of the story? 



76 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

3. What is the character of the hero? 

4. Why did the author make the hero a solitary character? 

5. Why is the author so slow in introducing the wolf? 

6. What is the hero's attitude toward the supernatural? 

7. How does the hero's attitude toward the supernatural affect the 

reader? 

8. Point out the various means by which the author makes the 

story seem true. 

9. What is the character of the wolf? 

10. Why does the author hold the story of the legend until the last? 

11. Did Hyde believe the wolf was a "spirit-wolf"? 

12. Divide the story into a series of important incidents. 

13. Show how style contributes to effect. 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. The Haunted House 11. The Dancing Squirrels 

2. Mysterious Footprints 12. Footsteps at Night 

3. A Strange Echo 13. The Lost Cemetery 

4. Warned in Time 14. The Woman in Black 

5. A Haunting Dream 15. The Dead Patriot 

6. My Great-Grandfather 16. The Cat That Came Back 

7. The Old Grave 17. The Church Bell 

8. The Ruined Church 18. The Old Battlefield 

9. Tap! Tap! Tap! 19. The Indians' Camp 
10. Prophetic Birds 20. The Hessian's Grave 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

If you are to imitate Running Wolf successfully you must first 
think of a story of the supernatural, a simple, easily-understood 
story that will have a foundation of fact, and that will appear to be 
reasonable in its use of the supernatural. Then, without introducing 
your story immediately, show how a person who knows nothing of 
it takes part in a series of events that lead him to understand the 
story. 

Make the setting of your story one that will contribute strongly 
to the central effect. Do not give any definite explanation of the 
events that you narrate. Give your reader such an abundance of 
suggestion that he will be led to infer a supernatural explanation. 

Hold until the last the basic story on which you found your en- 
tire narration. 



THE BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY 
HOW I FOUND AMERICA 

By ANZIA YEZIERSKA 

In 1896 Miss Yezierska came from Plotzic in Bussian Poland, 
where she was born. After hard experiences in a "sweat 
shop" she became a teacher of cooking. She is the author of 
Hungry Hearts. Her dialect stories, strongly realistic and 
touching, appear in many magazines. 

An autobiography is a straightforward story of the life of the writer. 
An autobiographical essay is a meditation on the events in one's own 
life. 

How I Found America is an autobiographical essay. It does not tell 
the story of the writer's life: it tells the writer's thoughts preceding 
and after her arrival in America. As in all good essays, the subject is 
much greater than the writer. The meditation is purely personal, but 

' it stirs a response in every thoughtful reader. It asks and answers the 

i questions : ' ' What do oppressed foreigners think America to be ? " 
"What do immigrants find America to be?" "How can we make 

' immigrants into the most helpful Americans?" 

' The anecdotes that make the parts of the essay are as graphic as so 
many bold drawings. The principal sections of the essay are as distinct 

, as the chapters of a book. At all times this essay concerns the question, 

j "What is it to be an American?" 

In some respects this particular essay is like a musical composition; 

! for it begins with a sort of prelude, rises through a series of movements, 
and culminates in a triumphant close, the whole composition being 
marked by the presence of a strong motif — the exaltation of the true 

j spirit of America. 

Every breath I drew was a breath of fear, every shadow 
I a stifling shock, every footfall struck on my heart like the 
'' heavy boot of the Cossack. On a low stool in the middle of 
I the only room in our mud hut sat my father, his red beard 
' falling over the Book of Isaiah, open before him. On the 
' tile stove, on the benches that were our beds, even on the 
' earthen floor, sat the neighbors' children, learning from him 
I the ancient poetry of the Hebrew race. As he chanted, the 
I children repeated : 

77 



78 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, 

Prepare ye the way of the Lord. 

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 

Every valley shall be exalted, 

And every mountain and hill shall be made low, 

And the crooked shall be made straight, , 

And the rough places plain, 1 

And the glory of God shall be revealed, i 

And all tlesh shall see it together. • 

Undisturbed by the swaying and chanting of teacher and 
pupils, old Kakah, our speckled hen, with her brood of 
chicks, strutted and pecked at the potato-peelings that fell 
from my mother's lap as she prepared our noon meal. 

I stood at the window watching the road, lest the Cossack 
come upon us unawares to enforce the ukase of the czar, 
which would tear the last bread from our mouths: "No 
chadir [Hebrew school] shall be held in a room used for 
cooking and sleeping." 

With one eye I watched ravenously my mother cutting 
chunks of black bread. At last the potatoes were ready. She 
poured them out of an iron pot into a wooden bowl and 
placed them in the center of the table. 

Instantly the swaying and chanting ceased. The children 
rushed forward. The fear of the Cossack was swept away 
from my heart by the fear that the children would get my 
potato, and deserting my post, with a shout of joy I seized 
my portion and bit a huge mouthful of mealy delight. 

At that moment the door was driven open by the blow 
of an iron heel. The Cossack's whip swished through the air. 
Screaming, we scattered. The children ran out — our liveli- 
hood with them. 

" Oi weh!" wailed my mother, clutching at her breast, 
"is there a God over us and sees all this?" 

With grief-glazed eyes my father muttered a broken prayer 
as the Cossack thundered the ukase: "A thousand-ruble fine, 
or a year in prison, if you are ever found again teaching 
children where you 're eating and sleeping." 

" Gottunieu!" then pleaded my mother, "would you tear 
the last skin from our bones? Where else should we be 



HOW I FOUND AMEEICA 79 

eating and sleeping ? Or should we keep chadXr in the middle 
of the road? Have we houses with separate rooms like 
the czar?" 

Ignoring my mother's protests, the Cossack strode out of 
the hut. My father sank into a chair, his head bowed in 
the silent grief of the helpless. 
My mother wrung her hands. 

"God from the world, is there no end to our troubles? 
When will the earth cover me and my woes,?" 

I watched the Cossack disappear down the road. All 
at once I saw the whole village running toward us. I 
dragged my mother to the window to see the approaching 
crowd. 

"Gevalt! what more is falling over our heads?" she cried 
I in alarm. 

i Masheh Mindel, the water-carrier's wife, headed a wild 
procession. The baker, the butcher, the shoemaker, the tailor, 
\ the goatherd, the workers in the fields, with their wives and 
' children pressed toward us through a cloud of dust. 

Masheh Mindel, almost fainting, fell in front of the door- 
* way. 
' "A letter from America ! ' ' she gasped, 

"A letter from America!" echoed the crowd as they 
; snatched the letter from her and thrust it into my father's 
; hands. 

I "Read, read!" they shouted tumultuously. 
] My father looked through the letter, his lips uttering no 
sound. In breathless suspense the crowd gazed at him. Their 
^ eyes shone with wonder and reverence for the only man in 
: the village who could read. Masheh Mindel crouched at hia 
{ feet, her neck stretched toward him to catch each precious 

I word of the letter. 

I 

I To mj worthy wife, Masheh Mindel, and to my loving son, Sushkah 
I Feivel, and to my darling daughter, the apple of my eye, the pride of 
, my life, Tzipkelehl 

Long years and good luck on you! May the blessings from heaven 
I fall over your beloved heads and save you from all harm! 
I First I come to tell you that I am well and in good health. May I 
hear the same from you! 



80 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

Secondly, I am telling you that my sun is beginning to shine in 
America. I am becoming a person — a business man. I have for myself 
a stand in the most crowded part of America, where people are as thick 
as flies and every day is like market-day at a fair. My business is 
from bananas and apples. The day begins with my push-cart full of 
fruit, and the day never ends before I can count up at least two dollars' 
profit. That means four rubles. Stand before your eyes, I, Gedalyah 
Mindel, four rubles a day; twenty-four rubles a week! 

"Gedalyah Mindel, the water-carrier, twenty-four rubles 
a week!" The words leaped like fire in the air. 

We gazed at his wife, Masheh Mindel, a dried-out bone of 
a woman. 

"Masheh Mindel, with a husband in America, Masheh 
Mindel the wife of a man earning twenty-four rubles a 
week! The sky is falling to the earth!" 

We looked at her with new reverence. Already she was 
a being from another world. The dead, sunken eyes became 
alive with light. The worry for bread that had tightened 
the skin of her cheek-bones was gone. The sudden surge 
of happiness filled out her features, flushing her face as 
with wine. The two starved children clinging to her skirts, 
dazed with excitement, only dimly realized their good for- 
tune in the envious glances of the others. But the letter 
went on : 

Thirdly, I come to tell you, white bread and meat I eat every day, 
just like the millionaires. Fourthly, I have to tell you that I am no 
more Gedalyah Mindel. Mister Mindel they call me in America. 
Fifthly, Masheh Mindel and my dear children, in America there are no 
mud huts where cows and chickens and people live all together. I have 
for myself a separate room, with a closed door, and before any one can 
come to me, he must knock, and I can say, ' ' Come in, " or " Stay out, ' ' 
like a king in a palace. Lastly, my darling family and people of the 
village of Sukovoly, there is no czar in America. 

My father paused. The hush was stifling. "No czar — 
no czar in America ! ' ' Even the little babies repeated the 
chant, "No czar in America!" 

In America they ask everybody who should be the President. And I, 
Gedalyah Mindel, when I take out my citizen's papers, will have aa 
much to say who shall be our next President as Mr. Rockefeller, the 



HOW I FOUND AMEEICA 81 

greatest millionaire. Fifty rubles I am sending you for your ship- 
ticket to America. And may all Jews who suffer in Golluth from 
ukases and pogroms live yet to lift up their heads like me, Gedalyah 
Mindel, in America. 

Fifty rubles! A ship-ticket to America! That so much 
good luck should fall on one head ! A savage envy bit us. 
Gloomy darts from narrowed eyes stabbed Masheh Mindel. 
Why should not we, too, have a chance to get away from 
this dark land ! Has not every heart the same hunger for 
America, the same longing to live and laugh and breathe 
like a free human being? America is for all. Why should 
only Masheh Mindel and her children have a chance to the 
New World ? 

Murmuring and gesticulating, the crowd dispersed. Every 
one knew every one else's thought — how to get to America. 
What could they pawn? From where could they borrow for 
a ship-ticket? 

Silently, we followed my father back into the hut from 
which the Cossack had driven us a while before. We chil- 
dren looked from mother to father and from father to 
mother. 

"Gottunieu! the czar himself is pushing us to America by 
this last ukase." My mother's face lighted up the hut like 
a lamp. 

"Meshiigeneh Yideneh!" admonished my father. "Always 
your head in the air. What — where — America? With what 
money? Can dead people lift themselves up to dance?" 

"Dance?" The samovar and the brass pots reechoed my 
mother's laughter. "I could dance myself over the waves 
of the ocean to America." 

In amazed delight at my mother's joy, we children rippled 
and chuckled with her. My father paced the room, his 
face dark with dread for the morrow. 

"Empty hands, empty pockets; yet it dreams itself in 
you — America," he said. 

"Who is poor who has hopes on America?" flaunted my 
mother. 

"Sell my red-quilted petticoat that grandmother left for 
my dowry," I urged in excitement. 



83 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

"Sell the feather-beds, sell the samovar," chorused the 
children. 

"Sure, we can sell everything — the goat and all the win- 
ter things," added my mother. "It must be always summer 
in America." 

I flung my arms around my brother, and he seized Bessie 
by the curls, and we danced about the room, crazy with 
joy. 

"Beggars!" said my laughing mother. "Why are you 
so happy with yourselves? How will you go to America 
without a shirt on your back, without shoes on your feet?" 

But we ran out into the road, shouting and singing: 

"We '11 sell everything we got; we 're going to America. 
White bread and meat we '11 eat every day in America, in 
America ! ' ' 

That very evening we brought Berel Zalman, the usurer, 
and showed him all our treasures, piled up in the middle of 
the hut. 

"Look! All these fine feather-beds, Berel Zalman!" urged 
my mother. "This grand fur coat came from Nijny^ itself. 
My grandfather bought it at the fair. ' ' 

I held up my red-quilted petticoat, the supreme sacrifice 
of my ten-year-old life. Even my father shyly pushed for- 
ward the samovar. 

"It can hold enough tea for the whole village," he de- 
clared. 

"Only a hundred rubles for them all!" pleaded my mother, 
"only enough to lift us to America! Only one hundred 
little rubles!" 

"A hundred rubles! Pfui!" sniffed the pawnbroker. 
"Forty is overpaid. Not even thirty is it worth." 

But, coaxing and cajoling, my mother got a hundred 
rubles out of him. 

Steerage, dirty bundles, foul odors, seasick humanity; 
but I saw and heard nothing of the foulness and ugliness 

* Nijny-Novgorood. A Russian city on the Volga, the scene of a great 
annual fair. 



HOW I FOUND AMEEIOA 83 

about me. I floated in showers of sunshine; visions upon 
visions of the New AVorld opened before me. From lip to 
lip flowed the golden legend of the golden country : 

"In America you can say what you feel, you can voice 
your thoughts in the open streets without fear of a Cos- 
sack. ' ' 

"In America is a home for everybody. The land is your 
land, not, as in Russia, where you feel yourself a stranger 
in the village where you were born and reared, the village 
in which your father and grandfather lie buried." 

"Everybody is with everybody alike in America. Chris- 
tians and Jews are brothers together." 

"An end to the worry for bread, an end to the fear of 
the bosses over you. Everybody can do what he wants 
with his life in America." 

"There are no high or low in America. Even the Presi- 
dent holds hands with Gedalyah Mindel." 

"Plenty for all. Learning flows free, like milk and 
honey. ' ' 

"Learning flows free." The words painted pictures in 
my mind. I saw before me free schools, free colleges, free 
libraries, where I could learn and learn and keep on learn- 
ing. In our village was a school, but only for Christian 
children. In the schools of America I 'd lift up my head 
and laugh and dance, a child with other children. Like a 
bird in the air, from sky to sky, from star to star, I 'd soar 
and soar. 

"Land! land!" came the joyous shout. All crowded and 
pushed on deck. They strained and stretched to get the 
first glimpse of the "golden country," lifting their children 
on their shoulders that they might see beyond them. Men 
j fell on their knees to pray. Women hugged their babies 
and wept. Children danced. Strangers embraced and kissed 
like old friends. Old men and old women had in their eyes 
a look of young people in love. Age-old visions sang them- 
selves in me, songs of freedom of an oppressed people. Amer- 
ica ! America ! 

Between buildings that loomed like mountains we strug- 



84 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

gled with our bundles, spreading around us the smell of 
the steerage. Up Broadway, under the bridge, and through 
the swarming streets of the Ghetto, we followed Gedalyah 
Mindel. 

I looked about the narrow streets of squeezed-in stores 
and houses, ragged clothes, dirty bedding oozing out of the 
windows, ash-cans and garbage-cans cluttering the sidewalks. 
A vague sadness pressed down my heart, the first doubt of 
America. 

''Where are the green fields and open spaces in America?" 
cried my heart. "Where is the golden country of my 
dreams?" A loneliness for the fragrant silence of the 
woods that lay beyond our mud hut welled up in my heart, 
a longing for the soft, responsive earth of our village streets. 
All about me was the hardness of brick and stone, the smells 
of crowded poverty. 

"Here 's your house, with separate rooms like a palace," 
said Gedalyah Mindel, and flung open the door of a dingy, 
airless flat. 

"Oi iveh!" cried my mother in dismay. "Where 's the 
sunshine in America?" She went to the window and looked 
out at the blank wall of the next house. "Gottunieu! Like 
in a grave so dark!" 

' * It ain 't so dark ; it 's only a little shady, ' ' said Gedalyah 
Mindel, and lighted the gas. "Look only!" — he pointed 
with pride to the dim gas-light — "No candles, no kerosene 
lamps, in America. You turn on a screw, and put to it a 
match, and you got it light like with sunshine." 

Again the shadow fell over me, again the doubt of America. 
In America were rooms without sunlight; rooms to sleep 
in, to eat in, to cook in, but without sunshine, and Gedalyah 
Mindel was happy. Could I be satisfied with just a place to 
sleep in and eat in, and a door to shut people out, to take 
the place of sunlight? Or would I always need the sunlight 
to be happy? And where was there a place in America for 
me to play? I looked out into the alley below, and saw 
pale-faced children scrambling in the gutter. "Where is 
America?" cried my heart. 



HOW I FOUND AMERICA 85 

My eyes were shutting themselves with sleep. Blindly I 
felt for the buttons on my dress ; and buttoning, I sank back 
in sleep again — the dead-weight sleep of utter exhaustion. 

''Heart of mine," my mother's voice moaned above me, 
"father is already gone an hour. You know how they '11 
squeeze from you a nickel for every minute you 're late. 
Quick only!" 

I seized my bread and herring and tumbled down the 
stairs and out into the street. I ate running, blindly press- 
ing through the hurrying throngs of workers, my haste 
and fear choking every mouthful. I felt a strangling in 
my throat as I neared the sweat-shop prison; all my nerves 
screwed together into iron hardness to endure the day's 
torture. 

For an instant I hesitated as I faced the grated windows 
of the old building. Dirt and decay cried out from every 
crumbling brick. In the maw of the shop raged around 
me the roar and the clatter, the merciless grind, of the pound- 
ing machines. Half-maddened, half-deadened, I struggled to 
think, to feel, to remember. What am I ? Who am I ? Why 
am I here? I struggled in vain, bewildered and lost in a 
whirlpool of noise. "America — America, where was Amer- 
ica?" it cried in my heart. 

Then came the factory whistle, the slowing down of the 
machines, the shout of release hailing the noon hour. I woke 
as from a tense nightmare, a weary waking to pain. In 
the dark chaos of my brain reason began to dawn. In my 
stifled heart feelings be^an to pulse. The wound of my 
wasted life began to throb and ache. With my childhood 
choked with drudgery, must my youth, too, die unlived? 

Here were the odor of herring and garlic, the ravenous 
munching of food, laughter and loud, vulgar jokes. Was it 
only I who was so wretched? I looked at those around me. 
'Were they happy or only insensible to their slavery? How 
could they laugh and joke? Why were they not torn with 
rebellion against this galling grind, the crushing, deadening 
movements of the body, where only hands live, and hearts 
and brains must die? 



86 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

I felt a touch on my shoulder and looked up. It was 
Yetta Solomon, from the machine next to mine. 

"Here 's your tea." 

I stared at her, half -hearing. 

"Ain't you going to eat nothing?" 

"Oi weh, Yetta! I can't stand it!" The cry broke from 
me. ' ' I did n 't come to America to turn into a machine. I 
came to America to make from myself a person. Does Amer- 
ica want only my hands, only the strength of my body, not 
my heart, not my feelings, my thoughts ? ' ' 

"Our heads ain't smart enough," said Yetta, practically. 
"We ain't been to school, like the American-born." 

"What for did I come to America but to go to school, 
to learn, to think, to make something beautiful from my 
life?" 

' ' 'Sh ! 'Sh ! The boss ! the boss ! ' ' came the warning whis- 
per. 

A sudden hush fell over the shop as the boss entered. He 
raised his hand. There was breathless silence. The hard, red 
face with the pig's eyes held us under its sickening spell. 
Again I saw the Cossack and heard him thunder the ukase. 
Prepared for disaster, the girls paled as they cast at one 
another sidelong, frightened glances. 

"Hands," he addressed us, fingering the gold watch-chain 
that spread across his fat stomach, "it 's slack in the other 
trades, and I can get plenty girls begging themselves to work 
for half what you 're getting; only I ain't a skinner. I al- 
ways give my hands a show to earn their bread. From now 
on I '11 give you fifty cents a dozen shirts instead of seventy- 
five, but I '11 give you night-work, so you needn't lose 
nothing." And he was gone. 

The stillness of death filled the shop. Every one felt the 
heart of the other bleed with her own helplessness. A sud- 
den sound broke the silence. A woman sobbed chokingly. 
It was Balah Rifkin, a widow with three children. 

"Oi weh!'' — ^she tore at her scrawny neck, — "the blood- 
sucker! the thief! How will I give them to eat, my babies, 
my hungry little lambs ! ' ' 



HOW I FOUND AMEEICA 87 

* ' Why do we let him choke us ? " 

"Twenty-five cents less on a dozen — how will we be able 
to live?" 

"He tears the last skin from our bones." 

"Why didn't nobody speak up to him?" 

Something in me forced me forward. I forgot for the 
moment how my whole family depended on my job. I for- 
got that my father was out of work and we had received a 
notice to move for unpaid rent. The helplessness of the 
girls around me drove me to strength. 

"I '11 go to the boss," I cried, my nerves quivering with 
fierce excitement. "I '11 tell him Balah Rifkin has three 
hungry mouths to feed. ' ' 

Pale, hungry faces thrust themselves toward me, thin, 
knotted hands reached out, starved bodies pressed close about 
me. 

' ' Long years on you ! ' ' cried Balah Rifkin, drying her eyes 
with a corner of her shawl. 

"Tell him about my old father and me, his only bread- 
giver," came from Bessie Sopolsky, a gaunt-faced girl with 
a hacking cough. 

' ' And I got no father or mother, and four of them younger 
than me hanging on my neck." Jennie Feist's beautiful 
young face was already scarred with the gray worries of age. 

America, as the oppressed of all lands have dreamed Amer- 
ica to be, and America as it is, flashed before me, a banner 
of fire. Behind me I felt masses pressing, thousands of 
immigrants; thousands upon thousands crushed by injustice, 
lifted me as on wings. 

I entered the boss's office without a shadow of fear. I 
was not I; the wrongs of my people burned through me 
till I felt the very flesh of my body a living flame of re- 
bellion. I faced the boss. 

"We can't stand it," I cried. "Even as it is we're 
hungry. Fifty cents a dozen would starve us. Can you, a 
Jew, tear the bread from another Jew's mouth?" 

"You fresh mouth, you! Who are you to learn me my 
business ? ' ' 



88 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

"Weren't you yourself once a machine slave, your life 
in the hands of your boss?" 

* ' You loafer ! Money for nothing you want ! The minute 
they begin to talk English they get flies in their nose. A 
black year on you, trouble-maker! I'll have no smart heads 
in my shop ! Such freshness ! Out you get ! Out from 
my shop ! ' ' 

Stunned and hopeless, the wings of my courage broken, 
I groped my way back to them — back to the eager, waiting 
faces, back to the crushed hearts aching with mine. 

As I opened the door, they read our defeat in my face. 

"Girls," — I held out my hands, — "he's fired me." My 
voice died in the silence. Not a girl stirred. Their heads 
only bent closer over their machines. 

"Here, you, get yourself out of here!" the boss thundered 
at me. "Bessie Sopolsky and you, Balah Rifkin, take out 
her machine into the hall. I want no big-mounted Anierican- 
erins in my shop." 

Bessie Sopolsky and Balah Rifkin, their eyes black with 
tragedy, carried out my machine. Not a hand was held out 
to me, not a face met mine. I felt them shrink from me as 
I passed them on my way out. 

In the street I found I was crying. The new hope that 
had flowed in me so strongly bled out of my veins. A 
moment before, our unity had made me believe us so strong, 
and now I saw each alone, crushed, broken. What were they 
all but crawling worms, servile grubbers for bread? 

And then in the very bitterness of my resentment the 
hardness broke in me. I saw the girls through their own 
eyes, as if I were inside of them. What else could they 
have done? Was not an immediate crust of bread for Balah 
Rifkin 's children more urgent than truth, more vital than 
honor? Could it be that they ever had dreamed of Amer- 
ica as I had dreamed? Had their faith in America wholly 
died in them? Could my faith be killed as theirs had been? 

Gasping from running, Yetta Solomon flung her arms 
around me. 

"You golden heart! I sneaked myself out from the shop 



HOW I FOUND AMERICA 89 

only to tell you I '11 come to see you, to-night. I 'd give 
the blood from under my nails for you, only I got to run back. 
I got to hold my job. My mother — " 

I hardly saw or heard her. My senses were stunned with 
my defeat. I walked on in a blind daze, feeling that any 
moment I would drop in the middle of the street from sheer 
exhaustion. Every hope I had clung to, every human stay, 
every reality, was torn from under me. Was it then only 
a dream, a mirage of the hungry-hearted people in the 
desert lands of oppression, this age-old faith in America? 

Again I saw the mob of dusty villagers crowding about 
my father as he read the letter from America, their eager 
faces thrust out, their eyes blazing with the same hope, the 
same faith, that had driven me on. Had the starved villagers 
of Sukovoly lifted above their sorrows a mere rainbow vision 
that led them — where? Where? To the stifling submission 
of the sweat-shop or the desperation of the streets! 

"God! God!" My eyes sought the sky, praying, "where 
— ^where is America ? ' ' 

Times changed. The sweat-shop conditions that I had lived 
through had become a relic of the past. Wages had doubled, 
tripled ; they went up higher and higher, and the working- 
day became shorter and shorter. I began to earn enough to 
move my family uptown into a sunny, airy flat with elec- 
tricity and telephone service. I even saved up enough to buy 
a phonograph and a piano. 

My knotted nerves relaxed. At last I had become free 
from the worry for bread and rent, but I was not happy. 
A more restless discontent than ever before ate out my 
heart. Freedom from stomach needs only intensified the 
needs of my soul. 

I ached and clamored for America. Higher wages and 
shorter hours of work, mere physical comfort, were not yet 
America. I had dreamed that America was a place where 
the heart could grow big with giving. Though outwardly 
I had become prosperous, life still forced me into an ex- 
istence of mere getting and getting. 



90 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

Ach! how I longed for a friend, a real American friend, 
some one to whom I could express the thoughts and feelings 
that choked me! In the Bronx, the up-town Ghetto, I felt 
myself farther away from the spirit of America than ever 
before. In the East Side the people had yet alive in their 
eyes the old, old dreams of America, the America that would 
release the age-old hunger to give; but in the prosperous 
Bronx good eating and good sleeping replaced the spiritual 
need for giving. The chase for dollars and diamonds dead- 
ened the dreams that had once brought them to America. 

More and more the all-consuming need for a friend pos- 
sessed me. In the street, in the cars, in the subways, I 
was always seeking, ceaselessly seeking for eyes, a face, the 
flash of a smile that would be light in my darkness. 

I felt sometimes that I was only burning out my heart 
for a shadow, an echo, a wild dream, but I couldn't help it. 
Nothing was real to me but my hope of finding a friend. 
America was not America to me unless I could find an 
American that would make America real. 

The hunger of my heart drove me to the night-school. 
Again my dream flamed. Again America beckoned. In 
the school there would be education, air, life for my cramped- 
in spirit. I would learn to think, to form the thoughts that 
surged formless in me. I would find the teacher that would 
make me articulate. 

I joined the literature class. They were reading ''The 
De Coverley Papers." Filled with insatiate thirst, I drank 
in every line with the feeling that any moment I would 
get to the fountain-heart of revelation. Night after night 
I read with tireless devotion. But of what? The manners 
and customs of the eighteenth century, of people two hun- 
dred years dead. 

One evening, after a month's attendance, when the class 
had dwindled from fifty to four, and the teacher began 
scolding us who were present for those who were absent, 
my bitterness broke. 

"Do you know why all the girls are dropping away from 
the class? It 's because they have too much sense than to 



HOW I FOUND AMEEICA 91 

waste themselves on ' The De Coverley Papers. ' Us four girls 
are four fools. We could learn more in the streets. It 's 
dirty and wrong, but it 's life. What are 'The De Coverley 
Papers'? Dry dust fit for the ash-can." 

"Perhaps you had better tell the principal your ideas 
of the standard classics," she scoffed, white with rage. 

"All right," I snapped, and hurried down to the principal's 
office. 

I swung open the door. 

"I just want to tell you why I 'm leaving. I — " 

"Won't you come in?" The principal rose and placed a 
chair for me near her desk. "Now tell me all." She leaned 
forward with an inviting interest. 

I looked up, and met the steady gaze of eyes shining with 
light. In a moment all my anger tied. "The De Coverley 
Papers" were forgotten. The warm friendliness of her 
face held me like a familiar dream. I couldn't speak. It 
was as if the sky suddenly opened in my heart. 

"Do go on," she said, and gave me a quick nod. "I 
want to hear," 

The repression of centuries rushed out of my heart. I 
told her everything — of the mud hut in Sukovoly where I 
was born, of the czar's pogroms, of the constant fear of 
the Cossack, of Gedalyah Mindel's letter, of our hopes in 
coming to America, and my search for an American who 
would make America real. 

"I am so glad you came to me," she said. And after a 
pause, "You can help me." 

' ' Help you ? " I cried. It was the first time that an Ameri- 
can suggested that I could help her. 

"Yes, indeed. I have always wanted to know more of 
that mysterious, vibrant life — the immigrant. You can help 
me know my girls. You have so much to give — " 

"Give — that 's what I was hungering and thirsting all 
these years — to give out what 's in me. I was dying in the 
unused riches of my soul." 

"I know; I know just what you mean," she said, putting 
her hand on mine. 



92 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

My whole being seemed to change in the warmth of her 
comprehension. "I have a friend," it sang itself in me, 
*'I have a friend!" 

"And you are a born American?" I asked. There was 
none of that sure, all-right look of the Americans about her. 

"Yes, indeed. My mother, like so many mothers," — and 
her eyebrows lifted humorously whimsical, — ' ' claims we 're de- 
scendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, and that one of our lineal 
ancestors came over in the Mayflmver." 

"For all your mother's pride in the Pilgrim Fathers, you 
yourself are as plain from the heart as an immigrant." 

"Weren't the Pilgrim Fathers immigrants two hundred 
years ago ? ' ' 

She took from her desk a book and read to me. 

Then she opened her arms to me, and breathlessly I felt 
myself drawn to her. Bonds seemed to burst. A suffusion 
of light filled my being. Great choirings lifted me in space. 
I walked out unseeingly. 

All the way home the words she read flamed before me: 
"We go forth all to seek America. And in the seeking we 
create her. In the quality of our search shall be the nature 
of the America that we create. ' ' 

So all those lonely years of seeking and praying were not 
in vain. How glad I was that I had not stopped at the husk, 
a good job, a good living! Through my inarticulate grop- 
ing and reaching out I had found the soul, the spirit of 
America. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What is the effect of the abrupt beginning? Where else in the 

essay is abruptness made a means of producing literary effect ? 

2. Point out excellent use of local color. 

3. Divide the essay into its principal parts. 

4. Show that the essay rises in power. 

5. How does the writer arouse the reader's sympathy for the 

characters ? 

6. How does the writer awaken the reader's patriotism? 

7. What opinion of America do oppressed foreigners have? To 



HOW I FOUND AMEKICA 93 

what extent is their opinion well founded? To what extent 
is their opinion not well founded? 

8. What impressions does a sea-coast city make upon immigrants? 

9. What sort of people oppress the immigrants after arrival in 

America? 

10. To what false beliefs is such oppression due? 

11. What opportunities does America present? 

12. What spirit should meet the aspirations of immigrants? 

13. What will do most to make immigrants into good Americans? 

14. Explain how the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers may be taught so 

that they will apply to the present as well as to the past. 

15. How may we help immigrants to do work that will make them 

into good Americans? 

16. Show that the conclusion of the essay emphasizes its entire 

thought. 

17. Show what rhetorical methods are employed in the essay. 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. How I Became a Good 11. Modernizing the De Coverley 

American Papers 

2. An Immigrant's Experience 12. The Value of Sympathy 

3. The Meaning of Freedom 13. The Spirit of America 

4. The Land of Opportunity 14. Showing the Way 

5. Making Good Americans 15. First Experiences in America 

6. The School and the Immi- 16, Letters from People in Other 

grant Lands 

7. My Coming to America 17. Being a Good American 

8. Life in the Crowded Sections 18. Enemies of America 

9. Sweat Shop Experiences 19. Uplifting the Foreign-Bom 
10. My Various Homes 20. The America I Love 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Write down some worthy thought that you have concerning Amer- 
ica. Then write a series of extremely personal incidents that will 
show graphically how you arrived at the thought you have in mind. 
Make the incidents short, condensed, and highly emphatic. Employ 
realistic characters, and give realistic quotations from their speech. 
Use the incorrect gi-ammar, the slang, and the foreign words that 
the characters employ daily. Arrange the incidents so that they 
will rise more and more to your principal thought. Make your last 
incident reveal that thought. 



MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD 

By WILLIAM HENEY SHELTON 

(1840 — ). An American -patriot and author. He served in 
many battles in the Civil War, and had thrilling experiences 
as a prisoner of war, escaping no less than four times. He is 
author of A Man Without a Memory; The Last Three Soldiers; 
The Three Prisoners. 

Every one has happy memories of childhood. He loves to conjure up 
the old familiar scenes, the kindly people, and the days that were days 
of wonder. 

The two sketches by Mr. Shelton are extracts from a long essay called 
Our Village, in which he recalls delightfully all his early surroundings 
and all his old companionships. 

In these extracts, as in the entire essay, Mr. Shelton avoids formal 
autobiography. He merely recalls the things that impressed him most. 
As far as possible he lifts himself back into the spirit of the past, and 
sees once again, but with added love, the things that have gone forever. 

My First School 

One day in the summer when I was four years old I was 
taken to the village school at the foot of the hill below the 
tavern. I have no recollection of how I got there, but my 
return to my grandmother's was so dramatic that it has im- 
pressed itself indelibly on my memory. Perhaps I was taken 
to school by the sentimental schoolmistress herself, who was 
a girl of sixteen and an intimate friend of my aunt, to 
whom, in after years, when she became a famous novelist, 
she used to send her books. Her maiden name was Mary Jane 
Hawes, but there was a red-haired, freckle-faced boy in 
one of the pretty houses facing the side of the church, who 
went to Yale College and gave her another name. 

The school-house consisted of one room, with an entry 
without any floor where the wood was cut and stored. The 
school-room was square, with a box-stove in the center. A 
form against the wall extended around three sides of the 
room, affording seats for the larger pupils, and in front of 

94 



MEMOEIES OF CHILDHOOD 95 

these a row of oak desks for slates and books was fantastically 
carved by generations of jack-knives, and made against the 
backs of a second row of desks was a low front form for the 
A-B-C children. On the fourth side, flanking the door, were 
a blackboard on one hand and on the other the schoolma 'am 's 
desk, usually decorated with a bunch of wild flowers or a red 
apple, either the gifts of a sincere admirer or the would-be 
bribe of some trembling delinquent. 

On the occasion of my first visit to the school I wore a 
blue-and-white dress of muslin-de-laine that was afterward 
made into a cushion for a rocking-chair in my mother's 
parlor. I was evidently dressed in my very best in honor 
of the occasion, and all went well until recess came. There 
was a rumble of thunder, and the sky had been growing 
dark with portent of storm, and the leaves and dust were 
flying on the wind when the children were released for play. 
I wanted to do everything that the other boys did, and so, 
when they scampered out with a rush, I followed without 
fear. Just as we came into the open the thunder-storm 
burst upon us. The wind blew off one boy's hat and whirled 
it in the direction of the village, and all the other boys joined 
in the chase. As I started to follow them a gust of wind 
and rain beat me to the ground, and drenched my dress 
I with mud and water. 

! I was promptly rescued by the schoolma 'am and taken 
linto the entry, where she undressed me on the wood-pile and 
wrapped me in her own woolen shawl, which was a black-and- 
jred pattern of very large squares. Thus bundled up and 
i rendered quite helpless except as to my lungs, I was laid on 
the floor near the stove, where I remained for the amuse- 
Iment of the children until the shower was over, when a 
.bushel-basket was sent for to the nearest house, which was 
the house of shoemaker Talmadge. Into this basket, com- 
jmonly used for potatoes and corn, I was put, wrapped in 
;the black-and-red shawl and packed around with my soiled 
jclothes, and two of the big boys, John Pierpont and John 
JTalmadge, carried me up the hill and through the village 
to my grandmother 's house. 
I 



96 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

In the summer following I went to school again, and again 
to the sentimental schoolma'am, who loved to teach, but 
abhorred to punish. Her gentle punishments rarely fright- 
ened the youngest children. 

She would say, "Henry, you have disobeyed me, and I shall 
have to cut off your ear," and with these ominous words 
she would draw the back of her penknife across the threat- 
ened ear. I must have been very small, for on one occasion 
she threatened to shut me up in one of the school desks. 

Our mad recreation out of school was "playing horse." 
We drove each other singly and in pairs by means of wooden 
bits and reins of sheep-twine, and some prancing horses were 
led, chewing one end of a twine string, and neighing and 
prancing almost beyond the control of the infant groom. 

In the congressman's woods, close by the school-house, we 
built stalls and mangers against logs and in fence corners, 
and gathered horse-sorrel and sheep-sorrel for hay. The 
stalls were bedded with grass and protected from the sun by 
a roof of green boughs, and the horses were watered and 
curried and groomed in imitation of that service at the stage 
stables, and the steeds themselves kicked and bit like the 
vicious leaders. 

Other teachers followed the young and sentimental one, 
and the surplus of the dinner-baskets, thrown out of the 
window or cast upon the wood-pile, bred a colony of gray 
rats that lived under the schoolhouse and came out to take 
the air in the quiet period after the door was padlocked 
at night and even ventured to come up into the school-room 
and look over the books and otherwise nibble at learning. 
"When I had advanced to the dignity of pictorial geography, 
as set forth in a thin, square-built, dog-eared volume, which 
not having been opened for a whole day by a certain prancing 
horse, he was left to learn his lesson while the teacher went 
to tea at the house below the tavern, and the wheat stubble 
under the window was soon alive with gray rodents that 
looked like the colony of seals in the geography. 

About this time the rats, having taken formal possession of 
the old school-house, a new school-house was built in our 



yf/ 



III .^\'\ 






V^-^ 




-% 









My great-grandmother 



MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD 97 

village just beyond my grandmother's house and facing her 
orchard. 

My Great-Grandmother 

My great-grandmother was the widow of an Episcopal 
clergyman, the Rev. Titus Welton, whose son was the first 
rector of the village church. My only acquaintance with my 
great-grandfather was connected with the white headstone 
that bore his name in the grave-yard. With the exception 
of a quaint water-color portrait in profile of my grandmother 
in a mob-cap bound with a black ribbon, which was equally 
a portrait of the flowered back of the rocking-chair in which 
she sat, she survives in my memory in a series of pictures. 
I see her sitting before the open fire, knitting, with one steel 
needle held in a knitting-sheath pinned to her left side, or 
taking snuff from a flat, round box that contained a vanilla 
bean to perfume the snuff. Her hands were twisted with 
rheumatism, and she walked with a cane. On one occasion I 
trotted by her side to church and carried her tin foot-stove, 
warm with glowing coals. 

She slept in a high post bed in her particular room over 
the sitting-room, which was warmed in winter by a sheet-iron 
drum connected with the stove below, and in one corner was 
a copper warming-pan with a long handle. When I sat at 
table in my high-chair eating apple-pie in a bowl of milk, 
she sat on the side nearest the fire eating dipped toast with 
a two-tined fork. The fork may have had three tines, but 
silver forks had not yet made their appearance. 

My great-grandmother lived just long enough to have 
her picture taken on a plate of silvered copper by the won- 
derful process of Daguerre,^ a process so like something 
diabolical that she protected her soul from evil, as all sitters 
in that part of the country did, by resting her hand on a 
great Bible, the back turned to the front, so that the letters 
''Holy Bible" could be read, proving that the great book 

* Louis Daguerre (1789-1859). A French painter who perfected one 
of the earliest methods of photography. 



98 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

was not a profane dictionary. The operator who took her 
da^erreotype traveled from town to town, hiring a room 
in the village tavern furnished with a chair, a stand on tri- 
pod legs, a brown linen table-cloth, and the aforesaid Bible, 
and when such of the people as had the fee to spare, the 
courage to submit to a new-fangled idea, and no fear that 
the face on the magical plate would fade away like any other 
spirit face when they opened the stamped-leather case with 
the red plush lining after it had lain overnight in the dark- 
ened parlor, he moved on like the cracker baker or any other 
itinerant showman. 

My great-grandmother had never sent or received a mes- 
sage by telegraph or ridden in a railway-carriage, and died 
in peace just before those portentous inventions came to 
destroy forever the small community life in which she had 
lived. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Why does the writer employ such simple language? 

2. What sort of events does he narrate? 

3. Why does he give so few details concerning his early schooldays? 

4. How does he look upon his early misfortunes? 

5. Why does he do little more than present the picture of his great- 

grandmother? 

6. Point out examples of gentle humor. 

7. What do the sketches reveal concerning life in the past? 

8. What spirit characterizes both sketches? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. My First Schooldays 11. Punishments I Remember 

2. My Grandparents 12. Queer Old Customs 

3. An Early Misfortune 13. My First Superstitions 

4. Some Vanished Friends 14. A Wonderful Day 

5. My Old Home 15. Gifts 

6. Playmates 16. My First Schoolbooks 

7. Old Toys 17. Pictures of Childhood 

8. My First Games 18. My Relatives 

9. A First Visit 19. A Great Event 
10. My First Costumes 20. Relics of the Past 



MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD 99 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Throw yourself back into the past. Conjure up the people with 
whom you used to associate. See once again the places where you 
played and where you lived. Think how happy it all was, and how 
good it is to look at it once more. Then put down on paper the 
things that you remember with the greatest interest. Write in such 
a way that you will give the reader the very spirit that you have. 
Remember: you are not to communicate facts; you axe to communi- 
cate emotion. 



A VISIT TO JOHN BURROUGHS 

By SADAKICHI HAETMANN 

Author of the first History of American Art, and also of a 
History of Japanese Art. His poems, short stories, and essays 
appear in many magazines. 

John Burroughs was a delightful essayist and a delightful man. 
Although he preferred to live the most simple of lives and to spend 
his time in meditation on the beauties of natural scenery, and the 
wonders of animal life, he attracted to himself the companionship of 
some of the greatest in the land, and the love of all people. To visit 
him would, indeed, have been a delight. 

A Visit to John Burroughs is not a dull narrative of the events of a 
visit, nor is it the report of an interview with the nature-lover. It is 
an article that admits one into the charm of Burroughs' spirit. We are 
with the man in his simple, book-filled home ; we learn his love for 
pasture and mountain-side, for birds and for gardening; and we gain 
some of that spirit of contentment and peace that made him, in his gray 
old age, appear like a prophet in the midst of an over-hurrying 
generation. 

In some places time passes without making any change. 
The little village on the Hudson where John Burroughs made 
his home half a century ago has shown no ambition of ex- 
pansion. There is no building activity, and the number 
of inhabitants has scarcely increased. The little church 
stands drowsily on the hill, and the same old homesteads 
grace the road. More freight-trains may rattle by, and 
more automobiles pass on the main road, but the physiognomy 
of the town has remained unchanged. It is as if time had 
stood still. The mist shuts out the rest of the world, river 
and hills disappear, the stems of the grape-vines look like 
a host of goblins, and the wet trees make darker silhouettes 
than usual. 

I knocked at a door and entered, and there sat John 
Burroughs stretched at full length in a Morris chair before 
some glowing beech-sticks in the open fire-place. There was 
not much conversation. What is most interesting in an 
author's life he expresses in his books, and so we indulged 

100 



A VISIT TO JOHN BUEROUGHS 101 

only in an exchange of phrases about his health, of the flight 
of time, and a few favored authors. The questioning of the 
interviewer can produce only forced results, and in par- 
ticular when the interviewed person has reached an age 
when taciturnity becomes natural, and one prefers to gaze 
at the dying embers and listen to the drip of the rain out- 
side. That his interest in literature did not lag was shown 
by a set of Fabre,^ whom he pronounced the most wonderful 
exponent in his special line. 

A quaint interior was this quiet little room. Conspicuous 
were the portraits of Whitman,^ Carlyle,^ Tolstoy,,* Roose- 
velt,^ and Father Brown of the Holy Order of the Cross, men 
who in one way or another must have meant something to his 
life. On the mantelpiece stood another portrait of Whit- 
man and a reproduction of ' ' Mona Lisa. ' ' "^ There were win- 
dows on every side, and the rest of the walls consisted of 
shelves filled with nature books. One shelf displayed the 
more scientific works, and one was devoted entirely to his 
own writings. It was the same room in which several years 
ago, on a summer day in the vagrom days of youth, I had 
read for the first time "Wake Robin," '^ that classic of out- 
of-door literature, and "The Flight of the Eagle," an ap- 
preciation of Walt Whitman. 

John Burroughs was fifty then, and had just settled down 

*Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915). A French entomologist who wrote 
many volumes on insect life, among them being The Life and Love of 
the Insects; The Life of the Spider; The Life of the Fly. 

^Walt Whitman (1819-1892). An American poet, noted for highly- 
original poems marked by absence of rhyme and metre. Whitman 
loved the outdoor world, and had great philosophic insight. 

* Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). A brilliant English essayist and his- 
torian, strikingly original and unconventional, and a firm upholder of 
stalwart manhood. 

* Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910). A great Russian novelist, reformer 
and philosopher, — a bold and original thinker. 

"Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919). Ranchman, author, soldier, ex- 
plorer, and President of the United States, a man of sterling manhood 
and great personal fearlessness. 

* Mona Lisa. A picture of a lady of Florence, painted about 1504 
by Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian painter. The face has a peculiarly 
tantalizing expression. 

' Wake Rohin. One of John Burroughs ' delightful outdoor books, 
written in 1870. 



102 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

seriously to his literary pursuits. He had risen brilliantly 
from youthful penury to be the owner of a large estate. His 
latest achievement was "Signs and Seasons"; "Riverby," 
a number of essays of out-of-door observations around his 
stone house by the Hudson, was in the making. 

There is a wonderful fascination in these books. They re- 
veal a man who has lived widely and intimately, who has 
made nature his real home. All day long he is mingled with 
the heart of things; every walk along the river, into the 
woods, or up the hills is an adventure. He exploits the 
teachings of experience rather than of books. His essays are 
always fused with actions of the open. One feels exhilara- 
tion in making the acquaintance of a man with an unnar- 
rowed soul who has burst free from the shackles of intellectual 
authority, who joyfully and buoyantly interprets the beauties 
about him, shunning no such pleasures as jumping a fence, 
wading a brook, or climbing a tree or mountain-side. 

American literature has always abounded with nature spec- 
ulation and research. Bryant ^ was a true poet of nature ; he 
loved woods, mountain, and river, and his "To the Yellow 
Wood Violet," and "The Blue Gentian" are gems of pic- 
torial nature-writing. Whittier^ transfigured the beauty of 
New England life in one poem "Snowbound," and in his 
"Autumn Walk" leisurely strolled to the portals of im- 
mortality. Whitman stalked about on the open road like a 
pantheist.^" 

Yet none had the faculties of discovery and interpretation 
like John Burroughs, the intimate knowledge, the warm 
vision, to which a wood-pile can become a matter of con- 
templation, and a back yard or a garden patch become as in- 
teresting as any scenery in the world. None of them could 
have lectured on apple-trees or gray squirrels with such 
intimacy as Burroughs. Burroughs has never any sympathy 

•William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). The first great American poet; 
author of Thanatopsis ; noted for his love of nature. 

'John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892). An American poet who wrote 
lovingly of New England life and scenery. He is noted for his poema 
against slavery. 

«* Pantheist. One who sees God in everything that exists. 



A VISIT TO JOHN BUEKOUGHS 103 

with the "pathetic fallacy of endowing inanimate objects 
Avith human attributes," nor would he indorse Machin's 
propaganda idea of the antagonism of animals against their 
human masters. 

A trout leaping in a mountain stream, the lively whistle of 

a bird high in the upper air, a bird's nest in an old fence 

post — these are some of the topics nearest his heart. No 

nature-writer has ever shown such diversity of interest. Even 

Bip Van Winkle did not know the mountains as well as does 

this camper and tramper for a lifetime on the same familiar 

grounds; over and over again he makes the round from 

Riverby to Slabsides, to Roxbury in the western Catskills, 

and back again to the rustic studio near the river. He knows 

every pasture, mountain-side, and valley of his chosen land. 

1 He even named some of the hills. One of them, much fre- 

\ quented by bees, he named ' * Mount Hymettus, ' ' ^^ because 

there "from out the garden hives, the humming cyclone of 

I humming bees" liked to congregate. 

i But is his minute observation of weed seeds in the open 
\ field or insect eggs on tree-trunks not disastrous to liter- 
\ ary expression ? Can this style of wrriting soar above 
( straightforward nature-writing of men like Wilson,^^ Muir,^^ 
White,^* and Chapman ? ^^ Burroughs is capable of making a 
Hong- winded analysis of the downward perch of the head of 
' the nut-hatch, but he is no Audubon.^^ As a literary man he 
lis an essayist who etches little vignettes, one after the other, 
ivrith rare precision. How fine is his sentence about the 
Jiinmusical song of the blackbirds! "The air is filled with 

\ " Mount Hymettus. A mountain in Greece from which most excel- 
lent honey was obtained in classic times. 

"Alexander Wilson (1766-1813). Born in Scotland and died in 
j Philadelphia; author of a remarkable study of American birds, pub- 
lished in nine volimies. 

"John Muir (1838-1914). An American naturalist and explorer of 
the west and of Alaska. 

"Gilbert White (1720-1793). An English naturalist, noted for his 
{Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne. 

I "Frank M. Chapman (1864 — ). An American writer on biro' life. He 
|is especially noted for excellent work in photographing birds. 
I "John James Audubon (1780-1851). A great AmCTican student of 
jbirds; noted for his exact drawings of birdsi. 



104 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

crackling, splintering, spurting, semi-musical sounds which 
are like salt and pepper to the ear." Here the poetic 
temperament finds an utterance far beyond the broad knowl- 
edge of nature. 

And there is his fine appreciation of Walt Whitman, his 
grasp of literary values despite working in a comparatively 
smaller field of activity. John Burroughs has a good deal 
of Whitman about him, whom he called ' * the one mountain in 
our literary landscape." The man of Riverby is not large 
of stature, but has the same nonchalance of deportment, 
the flowing beard, and the ruddy face, a few shades darker 
than that of the good gray poet; for Whitman was, after 
all, a city man, while Burroughs always lived his life out 
of doors. 

We talked about the looks of Whitman, whom he had known 
in Washington in the sixties. 

"Yes, he had a decided vitality, although he was already 
gray and bent at that time. Yes, he would talk if one could 
draw him out." 

' ' I believe he talked only for Traubel, " i^ I dryly remarked, 
at which Burroughs was greatly amused. 

Emerson ^^ was the god of Burroughs 's youth, but Whitman 
undoubtedly exercised the more lasting influence. This, how- 
ever, never touched Burroughs 's own peculiar nature-fresh- 
and-homespun style. It lingered only as a vague inspiration 
in the under rhythm of his work. Whitman had the macro- 
cosmic vision,^^ while Burroughs is an adherent of microcosm. 
Few can combine both qualities. 

Burroughs is an amateur farmer and gardener. He prunes 
his cherrytrees, cures hay, and thinks of new methods of 
mowing grain. He experimented with grape-vines, a rather 
futile occupation at this period of social evolution. He has 

"Horace Traubel (1858-1919) An American editor who was the 
literary executor of Walt "Whitman. 

"Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). An American poet and phil- 
osopher; a man of marked individuality and power. 

" Macrocosmic. The sentence means that Whitman looked upon the 
world and upon the universe as a whole, while Burroughs studied little 
or individual things in order to understand the whole. 



A VISIT TO JOHN BUEROUGHS 105 

been a great cherry-picker all his life, and I remember with 
keen pleasure how delicious those wild raspberries tasted 
that I shared with him one summer day. He has a celery 
farm at Roxbury, his birthplace, and when I was last at 
Slabsides, his bungalow in the hills near West Park, I saw 
nothing but beets for cattle. I was astonished at this pecu- 
liar, indeed, prosaic pastime. And still more so that he had 
chosen for residence a site in a hollow of the mountain-side, 
while only a few steps above one can enjoy a most gorgeous 
view of the surrounding country. Did he make the selec- 
tion because the place is more sheltered? No, I believe 
he chose the place intuitively, because it expresses his par- 
ticular point of view of life. The keen breeze and the wide 
view serve only for occasional inspiration; but the under- 
growth vegetation, the crust of soil, the hum of insects, the 
little flowers — these are the true stimulants of his eloquent 
simplicity of style. 

Burroughs professed to have a great admiration for 
Turguenieff's^*^ "Diary of a Sportsman." These exquisite 
prose poems represent nature at its best, but they are purely 
poetic, pictorial, with a big cosmic swing to them. This is 
out of the reach of Burroughs, and he never attempted it. 
His poems contain, as he says himself, more science and 
observation than poetry. A few beautiful lines everybody 
can learn to write, and unless they are fragments of a torso 
of the most intricate and beautiful construction, they will 
drop like the slanting rain into the dark wastes of oblivion. 

His lessons of nature, accepted as text -books in the public 
schools, have a true message to convey. They represent the 
socialization of science. He loves the birds and learned their 
ways; he could run his course aright, as he has placed his 
goal rightly. He stirred the earth about the roots of his 
knowledge deeply, and thereby entered a new field of thought. 
He became interested in final causes, design in nature. 

The transcendentalist -^ of the Emersonian period at last 

*'Ivan Turguenieff (1818-1883). A Russian novelist whose Diary of a 
Sportsman aided in bringing about the freeing of Russian serfs. 

^^ Transcendentalist. One who believes in principles that can not be 
proved by experiment. 



106 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

came to his own. There is something of the bigness of 
Thoreau ^^ in his recent writings, Thoreau who in his ' ' Con- 
cord and Merrimac River" had a mystical vision, a grip on re- 
ligious thought, and who, like a craftsman in cloisonne, 
hammered his philosophic speculations upon the frugal shapes 
of his observations. In "Ways of Nature" and "Leaf and 
Tendril" Burroughs has reached out as far as it is possible 
for a nature writer without becoming a philosopher. He 
now no longer contemplates the outward appearance of 
things, but their organic structure, the geological formation 
of the earth 's crust, and the evolution of life. And some ledge 
of rock will now give him the prophetic gaze into the past 
and into the future. 

And so John Burroughs at eighty-five, still chopping the 
wood for his own fireside, writing, lecturing, giving advice 
about phases of farm-work, strolling over the ground, still 
interested in literature, can serenely fold his hands and wait. 

Indeed, this white-bearded man, in his bark-covered study 
amidst veiled heights and blurred river scenes, furnishes a 
wonderful intimate picture which will linger in American 
literature and in the minds of all who yearn for a more in- 
timate knowledge of nature, unaffectedly told, like the song 
of the robin of his first love, "a harbinger of spring thoughts 
carrying with it the fragrance of the first flowers and the 
improving verdure of the fields." 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. How does the first paragraph indicate the key-note of the 

article ? 

2. What do Burroughs' pictures and books show concerning his 

character ? 

3. What sort of life did Burroughs lead? 

4. What is meant by "exploiting the teaching of experience rather 

than of books"? 

5. How did Burroughs find happiness? 

6. What is said concerning Burroughs' faculties of discovery and 

interpretation ? 
=" Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). An American essayist, natural- 
ist and philosopher. 



A VISIT TO JOHN BUEEOUGHS 107 

7. What diversity of interests did Burroughs show ? 

8. What is said concerning Burroughs' work as an essayist? 

9. Why was Burroughs fond of Walt Whitman? 

10. How did Burroughs gain literary style? 

11. What is meant by the "socialization of science"? 

12. What makes Burroughs such a charming person? 

13. Into what sections may the article be divided? 

14. What does the article reveal concerning its author? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. A Visit with My Teacher 11. Our Unusual Caller 

2. A Call on an Interesting' 12. A Talk with a Tramp 

Person 

3. In the Office of the Principal 13. The Beggar's Life 

4. Visiting My Relatives 14. My Cousin 

5. A Visit to Another School 15. A Talk with an Expert 

than My Own 

6. A Talk with a Fireman 16. My Friend, the Carpenter 

7. A Talk with a Policeman 17. Interviewing a Peddler 

8. An Interview with a Stranger 18. Talking with a Missionary 

9. The Man in the Office 19. In the Printer's Office 
10. The Busy Clerk 20. The Railroad Conductor 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Write about an actual visit or interview. In all your work pay 
most attention to presenting the spirit of the person whom you 
talk with. The events of your visit, and the remarks that are made, 
are of less importance than the things that reveal spirit, — the sur- 
roundings, the costume, the habits, the work done and the various 
things that show character. The essay is in no sense to be the story 
of a visit; it is to give an intimate picture of the person in whom, 
you are interested. Your object is to show character. 



WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK 

By H. A. OGDEN 

(1856 — ). An illustrator, particularly of American historical 
subjects, on which he is an authority. His most noted work is 71 
color plates of uniforms of the U. S. Army, 1775-1906. He 
made the original cartoons for the Washington memorial win- 
dow in the Valley Forge memorial. He is the author and 
illustrator of The Boys Book of Famous Eegiments; Our Flag 
and Our Songs; The Voyage of the Mayflower; Our Army for 
Our Boys (joint author) ; and numerous magazine articles of a 
historical nature. 

The ordinary magazine article, lacking the personal note, is not an 
essay. As a rule, such an article endeavors to present a subject in its 
entirety, to follow a strictly logical order, and to avoid any expression 
of personal reaction on the part of the writer. 

Some magazine articles, however, are written in such an easy, chatty 
style, without any hint of attempt to cover a subject either completely 
or logically, that they approach the essay form. 

Washington on Horsehach is an article that closely resembles an essay. 
It is discursive, anecdotal, wandering and is much like a pleasant talk 
about Washington and his love of horses. Although the writer keeps 
himself entirely behind the scenes it is evident that he is a man who 
admires horses as well as manliness and courage. 

"The best horseman of his age, and the most graceful 
figure that could be seen on horseback," was Thomas Jeffer- 
son's opinion of his great fellow-Virginian, George Washing- 
ton. From his early boyhood, a passionate fondness for the 
horse was a strong and lasting trait of our foremost American. 

When a little boy of eight, he was given his first riding- 
lessons on his pony Hero by Uncle Ben, an old servant (per- 
haps a slave) of his father's. 

On one occasion, when under the paternal eye, he tried 
over and over again to leap his pony. When he finally suc- 
ceeded in doing so, both rider and pony fell; but jumping 
up, the boy was quickly in the saddle again, his father, a 

108 



WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK 109 

masterful man who hated defeat, exclaiming, "That was 
ill ridden ; try it again ! ' ' This happening near their home, 
his mother rushed out, greatly alarmed, and begged them to 
stop. Finding her entreaties were unheeded, she returned to 
the house protesting that her boy would "surely be mur- 
dered!" And during all of her long life this dread of the 
dangers her son incurred was one of her striking eharacter- 
, istics. 

! This early training in riding, however, was greatly to the 
boy 's advantage ; for his satisfaction in conquering horses 
and training them made him a fine horseman and prepared 
him for the coming years when he was to be so much in the 
saddle. 

A notable instance of early intrepidity in the tall and ath- 
I letic boy, in his early teens, in mastering a wild, unmanage- 
! able colt is related by G. W. P. Custis,^ Washington's adopted 
I son. The story goes that this colt, a thoroughbred sorrel, 
' was a favorite of Washington's mother, her husband having 
I been much attached to him. Of a vicious nature, no one had 
i thus far ventured to ride him ; so before breakfast one morn- 
. ing, George, aided by some of his companions, corraled the 

animal and succeeded in getting bit and bridle in place. 
I Leaping on his back, the venturesome youth was soon tear- 
I ing around the enclosure at breakneck speed, keeping his seat 
firmly and managing his mount with a skill that surprised 
1 and relieved the fears of the other boys. An unlooked-for end 
I to the struggle came, however, when, with a mighty effort, the 
j horse reared and plunged with such violence that he burst a 
I blood-vessel and in a moment was dead. 

Looking at the fallen steed, the boys asked "What 's to be 
I done ? Who will tell the tale ? ' ' The answer soon had to be 
j given ; for when they went in to the morning meal, Mrs. 
j Washington asked if they had seen her favorite horse. 
I Noting their embarrassment, she repeated the question ; when 
i George spoke up and told the whole story of the misadven- 
j ture. "George, I forgive you, because you have had the 

] * George Washington Parke Custis (1781-1857). The adopted son of 
I George Washington. 



110 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

courage to tell the truth at once," was her characteristic 
reply. 

Upon their father's death, his accomplished brother Law- 
rence took an active interest in George's education and de- 
velopment. The boy had taken a strong hold on Lawrence's 
affection, which the younger brother returned by a devoted 
attachment. Among other accomplishments, George was en- 
couraged to perfect his horsemanship bj^ the promise of a 
horse, together with some riding clothes from London — espe- 
cially a red coat and a pair of spurs, sure to appeal to the 
spirit and daring of tlie youth. 

His first hunting venture, as told by Dr. Weir Mitchell ^ in 
* * The Youth of Washington, ' ' occurred on a Saturday morn- 
ing, — a school holiday even in those days, — when, there being 
none to hinder, George having persuaded an old groom to 
saddle a hunter, he galloped off to a fox-hunting ' ' meet ' ' four 
miles away. Greatly amused, the assembled huntsmen asked 
if he could stay on, and if the horse knew he had a rider? 
To which George replied that the big sorrel he rode knew his 
business ; and he was in at the kill of two foxes. On the way 
back the horse went lame, and on arriving at the stable the 
rider saw an overseer about to punish Sampson, the groom, 
for letting the boy take a horse that was about to be sold. He 
quickly dismounted and snatched the whip from the overseer 's 
hand, exclaiming that he was to blame and should be whipped 
first. The man answered that his mother would decide what 
to do ; but the boy never heard of the matter again. The 
anger he showed on this occasion caused old Sampson to ad- 
monish him never to "get angiy with a horse." 

When about sixteen, George lived a great part of the time 
at Mount Vernon, Lawrence's home, where he made many 
friends among the "Old Dominion" gentry, the most promi- 
nent of them being Thomas, Lord Fairfax, an eccentric old 
bachelor, residing with his kindred at Belvoir, an adjoining 
estate on the Potomac. As this had been the home of Anne 
Fairfax, Lawrence's wife, the brothers were ever welcome 

^Dr. S. Weir Mitchell (1829-1914). An American physician and 
novelist. His novel, Hugh Wynne, concerns the life of Washington. 



WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK 111 

guests. Attracted to each other by the fact that both were 
bold and skilful riders and by their love of horses, a life-long 
friendship was formed between the tall Virginian, a stripling 
in his teens, and the elderly English nobleman, and many a 
hard ride they took together, with a pack of hounds, over the 
rough country, chasing the gray foxes of that locality. 

Settled at Mount Vernon, in the years following his mar- 
riage and up to the beginning of the War for Independence, 
"Washington found great pleasure in his active, out-of-door 
life, his greatest amusement being the hunt, which gratified 
to the full his fondness for horses and dogs. 

His stables were full, numbering at one time one hundred 
and forty horses, among them some of the finest animals in 
Virginia. Magnolia, an Arabian, was a favorite riding-horse ; 
while Chinkling, Valiant, Ajax, and Blue-skin were also 
high-bred hunters. His pack of hounds was splendidly 
trained, and "meets" were held three times a week in the 
hunting season. 

After breakfasting by candle-light, a start was made at 
daybreak. Splendidly mounted, and dressed in a blue coat, 
scarlet vest, buckskin breeches, and velvet cap, and in the 
lead, — for it was Washington's habit to stay close up with 
the hounds, — the excitement of the chase possessed a strong 
fascination for him. 

These hunting parties are mentioned in many brief entries 
in his diaries. In 1768, he writes: "Mr. Bryan Fairfax, Mr. 
Grayson, and Phil Alexander came home by sunrise. Hunted 
and catched a fox with these : Lord Fairfax, his brother, and 
Colonel Fairfax and his brother; all of whom with Mr. 
Fairfax and Mr. AVilson of England dined here." Again, on 
November 26 and 29: "Hunted again with the same party." 
1768, — January 8 : " Hunting again with the same company — 
started a fox and run him four hours." Thus we learn from 
his own pen how frequently this manly sport, that kept him 
young and strong, was followed by the boldest rider in all 
Virginia. 

A seven-years absence during the war caused the hunting 
establishment of Mount Vernon to run down considerably; 



112 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

but on returning in 1783, after peace came, the sport was 
renewed vigorously for a time. 

Blue-skin, an iron-gray horse of great endurance in a long 
run, was the general's favorite mount during these days. 
With Billy Lee, the huntsman, blowing the big French 
horn, a present from Lafayette, — the fox was chased at full 
speed over the rough fields and through such tangled woods 
and thickets as would greatly astonish the huntsmen of to-day. 

What with private affairs, official visits, and the crowd of 
guests at his home, Washington felt obliged to give up this 
sport he so loved, for his last hunt with the hounds is said 
to have been in 1785. 

To return to his youthful days. At sixteen he was com- 
missioned to survey Lord Fairfax's vast estates, and soon 
after was appointed a public surveyor. The three years of 
rough toil necessitated by his calling were spent continually 
in the saddle. Those youthful surveys, being made with 
George's characteristic thoroughness, stand unquestioned to 
this day. 

The beginning of his active military career started with a 
long, difficult journey of five hundred miles to the French 
fort on the Ohio, most of which was made in the saddle. It 
was hard traveling for the young adjutant general of twenty- 
one accompanied by a small escort. On the return journey, 
the horses were abandoned, and it was when traveling on 
foot that his miraculous escapes from a shot fired by a 
treacherous Indian guide and from drowning, occurred. 

When, in 1755, the British expedition against the French 
fort on the Monongahela, commanded by General Braddock, 
started out from Alexandria, Washington, acting as one of 
the general 's aides, was too ill to start with it ; but when the 
day of action came, the day that the French and Indians 
ambushed the "red-coats," the young Virginia colonel, al- 
though still weak, rode everywhere on the field of slaughter, 
striving to rally the panic-stricken regulars; and although 
two horses had been shot under him, he was the only mounted 
officer left at the end of the fight. 

On the occasion of Washington 's first visit to Philadelphia, 



WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK 113 

New York, and Boston, in 1756, he rode the whole distance, 
with two aides and servants, to confer with Governor Shirley 
of Massachusetts and settle with him the question of his army- 
rank. He was appropriately equipped for his mission, and the 
description of the little cavalcade is very striking. Washing- 
ton, in full uniform of a Virginia colonel, a white-and-scarlet 
cloak, sword-knot of red and gold, his London-made holsters 
and saddle-cloth trimmed with his livery "lace" and the 
Washington arms, his aides also in uniform, with the servants 
in their white-and-scarlet liveries, their cocked hats edged 
with silver, bringing up the rear, attracted universal notice. 
Everywhere he was received with enthusiasm, his fame having 
gone before him. Dined and feted in Philadelphia and New 
York, he spent ten days with the hospitable royal governor of 
i Massachusetts. The whole journey was a success, bringing 
' him, as it did, in contact with new scenes and people. 

It seems noteworthy that in accounts of the campaigns and 

I battles of the Revolution such frequent mention is made of the 

I commander-in-chief on horseback. From the time he rode 

• from Philadelphia to take command of the army at Cam- 

, bridge, in 1775, down to the capitulation of Yorktown in 

I 1783, his horses were an important factor in his campaigns. 

Among many such incidents, a notable one is that which oc- 

I curred when, after the defeat of the Americans at Brooklyn 

and their retreat across the river to New York, Washington 

I in his report to Congress wrote : ' ' Our passage across the 

East River was effected yesterday morning; and for forty- 

i eight hours preceding that I had hardly been off my horse 

( and never closed my eyes. ' ' He was, in fact, the last to leave, 

: remaining until all his troops had been safely ferried across. 

An all-night ride to Princeton, in bitter cold, over frozen 
roads, and, when day dawned, riding fearlessly over the field 
i to rally his men, reining in his charger within thirty yards 
of the enemy, forms another well-known incident. 
J At the battle of Brandywine an old farmer was pressed into 
j service to lead the way to where the battle was raging, and he 
j relates that as his horse took the fences Washington was 
j continually at his side, saying repeatedly : ' ' Push along, old 



114 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOKIES 

man; push along!" Shortly after the defeat at Brandywine, 
General Howe's advance regiments were attacked at German- 
town; and here, as at Princeton, Washington, in spite of the 
protests of his officers, rode recklessly to the front when things 
were going wrong. 

After the hard winter at Valley Forge, and when in June 
of 1778 the British abandoned Philadelphia he took up the 
march to Sandy Hook, AVashington resolved to attack them 
on their route. On crossing the Delaware in pursuit of the 
enemy, Governor "William Livingston of New Jersey presented 
to the commander-in-chief a splendid white horse, upon which 
he hastened to the battle-field of Monmouth. 

Mr. Custis in his "Recollections of Washington," states 
that on the morning of the twenty-eighth of June, he rode, 
and for that time only during the war, a white charger. 
Galloping forward, he met General Charles Lee,^ with the 
advanced guard, falling back in confusion. Indignant at the 
disobedience of his orders, Washington expressed his wrath 
in peremptory language, Lee being ordered to the rear. Rid- 
ing back and forth through the fire of the enemy, animating 
his soldiers, and recalling them to their duty he reformed the 
lines and turned the battle tide by his vigorous meas- 
ures. From the overpowering heat of the day, and the 
deep and sandy soil, his spirited white horse sank under him 
and expired. A chestnut mare, of Arabian stock, was quickly 
mounted, this beautiful animal being ridden through the rest 
of the battle. Lafayette, always an ardent admirer of Wash- 
ington, told in later years of Monmouth, where he had com- 
manded a division, and how his beloved chief, splendidly 
mounted, cheered on his men. ' ' I thought then as now, ' ' said 
the enthusiastic Frenchman, "that never had I beheld so 
superb a man." 

Of all his numerous war-horses, the greatest favorite was 
Nelson — a large, light sorrel, with white face and legs, named 
after the patriot governor of Virginia. In many battles, — 

•General Charles Lee (1731-1782), An American Eevolutionary Gen- 
eral court-martialed for disobedience at the battle of Monmouth, 1778. 



WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK 115 

often under fire, — Nelson had carried his great master and 
was the favored steed at the crowning event of the war — the 
capitulation of Yorktown. 

Living to a good old age, and never ridden after Washing- 
ton ceased to mount him, the veteran charger was well taken 
care of, grazing in a paddock through the summers. And 
often, as the retired general and President made the rounds 
of his fields, the old war-horse would run neighing to the 
fence, to be caressed by the hand of his former master. 

During the eight years of his Presidency, Washington fre- 
quently took exercise on horseback, his stables containing at 
that time as many as ten coach- and saddle-horses. 

When in Philadelphia, then the seat of government, the 
President owned two pure white saddle-horses, named Pres- 
cott and Jackson, the former being a splendid animal, which, 
while accustomed to cannon-fire, waving flags, or martial 
music, had a bad habit of dancing about and shying when 
a eoach, especially one containing ladies, would stop to greet 
the President. The other white horse, Jackson, was an Arab, 
with flowing mane and tail, but, being an impetuous and 
fretful animal, he was not a favorite. 

A celebrated riding-teacher used to say that he loved "to 
j see the general ride ; his seat is so firm, his management of 
his mount so easy and graceful, that I, who am a professor 
of horsemanship, would go to him and learn to ride." 

Since his early boyhood, the onlj^ recorded fall from a horse 
that Washington had was once on his return to Mount Vernon 
from Alexandria. His horse on this occasion, while an easy- 
gaited one, was scary. When Washington was about to mount 
1 and rise in the stirrup, the animal, alarmed by the glare of a 
fire by the roadside, sprang from under his rider, who fell 
heavily to the ground. Fearing that he was hurt, his com- 
panions rushed to his assistance, but the vigorous old gentle- 
man, getting quickly on his feet, assured them that, though 
his tumble was complete, he was unhurt. Having been only 
poised in his stirrup and not yet in the saddle, he had a fall 
no horseman could prevent when a scary animal sprang from 



116 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

under him. Vicious propensities in horses never troubled 
Washington ; he only required them to go along. 

An amusing anecdote is told of one of Washington's sec- 
retaries, Colonel David Humphreys. The colonel was a lively 
companion and a great favorite, and on one of their rides 
together he challenged his chief to jump a hedge. Always 
ready to accept a challenge of this sort, Washington told him 
to "go ahead," whereupon Humphreys cleared the hedge, 
but landed in the ditch on the other side up to his saddle- 
girth. Riding up and smiling at his mud-bespattered friend, 
Washington observed, "Ah, Colonel, you are too deep for 
me!" 

On the Mount Vernon estates, during the years of retire- 
ment from all public office, his rides of inspection were from 
twelve to fourteen miles a day, usually at a moderate pace; 
but being the most punctual of men, he would, if delayed, 
display the horsemanship of earlier days by a hard gallop 
so as to be in time for the first dinner-bell at a quarter of three. 

A last glimpse of this great man in the saddle, is as an old 
gentleman, in plain drab clothes, a broad-brimmed white hat, 
carrying a hickory switch, with a long-handled umbrella hung 
at his saddle-bow — such was the description given of him by 
Mr. Custis to an elderly inquirer who was in search of the 
general on a matter of business. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What is the effect of the opening quotation"? 

2. Point out all the ways in which the article resembles an essay. 

3. Show that the article does not follow a strictly logical plan. 

4. Show in what respects the article differs from ordinary magazine 

articles. 

5. What characterizes the style of the article? 

6. How does the writer make the article interesting? 

7. What hints of the writer's personality does the article give? 

8. What does the article say concerning the character of Wash- 

ington? 

9. Summarize what is said concerning Washington as a horseman. 
10.. How much is said about the biography of Washington? 



'm /., 







Colonel Humphreys landed in the ditch 



WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK 



117 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. U. S. Grant as a Horseman 

2. Alexander the Great as a 

Horseman 

3. Napoleon as a Horseman. 

4. Abraham Lincoln as a Story 

Teller 

5. Longfellow as a Lover of 

Children 

6. Ralph Waldo Emerson as a 

Neighbor 

7. Henry David Thoreau as an 

Explorer 

8. Benjamin Franklin as an 

Originator 

9. Charles Lamb as a Brother 



10. Queen Elizabeth as a Woman 

11. William Morris as a Work- 

man 

12. Charles Dickens as a Human- 

itarian 

13. Shakespeare as a Punster 

14. Milton as a Husband 

15. Robert Louis Stevenson as a 

Traveler 

16. Samuel Johnson as a Friend 

17. Jack London as a Wanderer 

18. Theodore Roosevelt as a 

Fighter 

19. Mark Twain as a Humorist 

20. Edison as an Inventor 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Select both a subject and a theme in which you are interested. 
Take your note-book and consult encyclopedias, histories, and books 
of biography, noting down everything that has relation to your par- 
ticular subject and theme. Hunt especially for interesting anec- 
dotes; if they are hmnorous, — so much the better. 

You will do well to introduce your article with an appropriate 
quotation. Make your writing as conversational and as anecdotal 
as possible. Don't be in the least bit encyclopedic. Be gossipy. 



THE HISTORICAL STORY 
HAVELOK THE DANE 

By GEOEGE PHILIP KEAPP 

(1872 — ). Professor of English in Columbia University. He 
is a memier of many scholarly societies, and has written much 
on English. Among his hoolcs are The Elements of English 
Grammar; In Oldest England; The Else of English Literary- 
Prose. 

The story of Eaveloh the Bane is one of the oldest of English stories; 
for the story that is here told is only a re-telling of a narrative that 
originated nearly a thousand years ago. The first story of Havelok 
was probably written in Anglo-Saxon in the eleventh century or in the 
first half of the twelfth century. It was told in French about 1150, 
and re-told in English about 1300. Some critics find close relation 
between the story of Havelok and the story of Hamlet. 

In all probability there was a real Havelok who may have lived in 
the latter part of the tenth century, and who may have participated in 
events like those told in the story. It is probable that as stories of 
his romantic career were repeated they increased, — just as gossip 
increases. The facts became lost in a body of romantic events. The 
Havelok of the story is therefore a character of fiction. 

The story is interesting in many ways. First of all, it is a remarkably 
good story, very human and capable of awakening sympathy, full of 
quick event, centered around the fascinating subjects of youth, adven- 
ture and love, and picturesque in its details and episodes. Then it is 
an old story, — ten centuries old, — and is interesting as a relic of the 
past. In addition, it shows remarkably well what sort of stories 
preceded the short stories and the novels of to-day, and how the old 
stories sometimes grew from a mingling of fact and imagination. 

In reading the story of Havelok the Dane we stand, as it were, in 
the presence of one of the story tellers of the extreme past. Around 
us we feel castle walls and the presence of rough fighting men. The 
flames of the great fireplace flare on our faces, and we listen w'ith 
childlike interest. 

Many years ago, in the days of the Angles and Saxons, 
there was once a king of England whose name was Athelwold. 
In that time a traveler might bear fifty pounds of good red 
gold on his back throughout the length and breadth of Eng- 

118 



HAVELOK THE DANE 119 

land, and no one would dare molest him. Robbers and thieves 
were afraid to ply their calling, and all wrong-doers were 
careful to keep out of the way of King Athelwold's officers. 
That was a king worth while. 

Now this good King Athelwold had no heir to his throne 
but one young daughter, and Goldborough was her name. 
Unhappily, when she was just old enough to walk, a heavy 
sickness fell upon King Athelwold, and he saw that his days 
were numbered. He grieved greatly that his daughter was 
not old enough to rule and to become queen of England after 
him, and called all the lords and barons of England to come 
to him at Winchester to consult concerning the welfare of his 
kingdom and of his daughter. 

Finally it was decided that Godrich, Earl of Cornwall, who 
was one of the bravest, and, everybody said, one of the truest, 
men in all England, should take charge of the child Gold- 
borough and rule the kingdom for her until she was old 
enough to be made queen. On the Holy Book, Earl Godrich 
swore to be true to this trust wliich he had undertaken, and 
he also swore, as the king commanded, that when Goldborough 
reached the proper age, he would marry her to the highest, 
the fairest, and the strongest man in the kingdom. When all 
this was done, the king's mind was at rest, for he had the 
greatest faith in the honor of Earl Godrich. It was not long 
thereafter that the end came. There was great grief at the 
death of the good king, but Godrich ruled in his stead and 
was the richest and most powerful of all the earls in England. 
We shall say no more about him while Goldborough is grow- 
ing older, and in the end we shall see whether Earl Godrich 
was true to his trust and to the promises he had given to 
Goldborough 's father. 

Now it happened, at this same time, that there was a king 
in Denmark whose name was Birkabeyn. Three children he 
had, who were as dear to him as life itself. One of these was 
a son of five years, and he was called Havelok. The other 
two were daughters, and one was named Swanborough and 
the other Elflad. Now when King Birkabeyn most wished 
to live, the hand of death was suddenly laid upon him. As 



120 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

soon as he realized that his days in this life were over, he 
looked about for some one to take care of his three young 
children, and no one seemed so fit for this office as the Earl 
Godard. To Godard, therefore, he intrusted the care of his 
three children, and Godard faithfully promised to guard them 
until the boy Havelok was old enough to become king of 
Denmark. 

Scarcely, however, was the body of King Birkabeyn laid 
away in the grave, before the faithless Godard began to plot 
evil, and he determined to be himself king of Denmark. So 
he took Havelok and his two sisters and cast them into prison 
in a great stone castle. 

In this prison the poor little children almost perished from 
cold and hunger, but they little knew that still worse mis- 
fortune was in store for them. For one day Earl Godard 
went to the castle where they were imprisoned, and Havelok 
and his sisters fell on their knees before him and begged for 
mercy. "What do you want?" said Godard. "Why all this 
weeping and howling?" And the children said they were 
very hungry. ' ' No one comes to give us of food and drink the 
half part that we need. We are so hungry that we are well 
nigh dead." 

When Godard heard this, his heart was not touched, but, 
on the contrary, it grew harder within him. He led the two 
little girls away with him, and took away the lives of these 
innocent children; and he intended to do the same with 
young Havelok. But the terrified boy again fell on his knees 
before Godard and cried: "Have pity upon me. Earl Godard! 
Here I offer homage to you. All Denmark I will give to you 
if you will but let me live. I will be your man, and against 
you never raise spear nor shield." 

Now when Godard heard this and when he looked down at 
young Havelok, the rightful heir to the throne of Denmark, 
his arm grew weak, though his heart was as hard as ever. He 
knew that if he was ever to become king, Havelok must die ; 
but he could not bring himself to the point of taking the life 
of his lawful sovereign. 

So he cast about in his mind for some other way to get rid 



HAVELOK THE DANE 121 

of him. He sent for a poor fisherman whose name was Grim. 
Now Grim was Godard's thrall, or slave, and was bound to do 
whatever Godard asked of him. When Grim had come to 
him, Godard said : ' ' Thou knowest, Grim, thou art my thrall, 
and must do whatever I bid thee. To-morrow thou shalt be 
free and a rich man if thou wilt take this boy that I give thee 
and sink him to-night deep down in the sea. All the sin I will 
take upon myself." 

Grim was not a bad man, but the promise of his freedom 
was a sore temptation, and besides, Godard, his master, had 
said that he would be responsible for the deed. So Grim took 
Havelok, not knowing, of course, who he was, and put him 
in a sack and carried him off to his little cottage by the 
seashore, intending that night to row out to deep water and 
throw him overboard. 

Now when it came midnight. Grim got up from his bed, 
and bade his wife, Dame Leve, bring a light for he must go 
out and keep his promise to Earl Godard. But when Leve 
went into the other room, where Havelok was lying bound 
and gagged, what was her surprise to see that there was 
already a light in the room. Right over Havelok 's head it 
seemed to stand ; but where it came from, she could not guess. 

"Stir up. Grim," she cried, *'and see what this light is 
here in our cot!" 

And Grim came running in, and he too saw the strange 
light and was as surprised as Leve had been. Then he un- 
covered Havelok, and there on his right shoulder he saw a 
birthmark, bright and fair, and knew from this, right away, 
that this boy was Havelok, the son of King Birkabeyn. When 
Grim realized this, he fell on his knees before Havelok and 
said, "Have mercy on me and on Leve, my wife, here by me! 
For thou art our rightful king and therefore in everything 
we should serve thee." Then when Grim had unbound him 
and had taken the gag out of his mouth, Havelok was a 
happy boy again ; and the first thing he asked for was some- 
thing to eat. And Dame Leve brought bread and cheese, and 
butter and milk and cookies and cakes, and for the first time 
in many a long day Havelok had all he wanted to eat. Then 



122 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

when Havelok had satisfied his hunger, Grim made a good 
bed for him and told him to go to sleep and to fear nothing. 

Now the next morning, Grim went to the wicked traitor 
Godard and claimed his reward. But little he knew the faith- 
lessness of Godard. 

"What!" cried Godard, "wilt thou now be an earl? Go 
home, and be as thou wert before, a thrall and a churl. If I 
ever hear of this again, I will have thee led to the gallows, 
for thou hast done a wicked deed. Home with you, and keep 
out of my way, if you know what is good for you ! ' ' 

When Grim saw this new proof of the wickedness of Earl 
Godard, he ran home as fast as he could. He knew that his 
life was not safe in Godard 's hands, especially if the earl 
should ever find out that Havelok was still alive. Grim had 
hoped to get money from Earl Godard with which to escape 
to some other country, but now he saw that he would have 
to depend on his own means. Secretly he sold all that he had 
and when he had got the ready money for it, he bought him 
a ship and painted it with tar and pitch, and fitted it out 
with cables and oars and a mast and sail. Not a nail was 
lacking that a good ship should have. Last of all Grim put 
in this ship his good wife Dame Leve, and his three sons and 
two daughters and Havelok, and off they sailed to the open 
ocean. They had not been sailing very long, however, before 
a wind came out of the north and drove them toward Eng- 
land. At the river Humber they finally reached land, and 
there on the sand near Lindesey, Grim drew his ship up on 
the shore. A little cot he straightway built for his family; 
and since this was Grim 's home, the town that gradually grew 
up there in later days came to be named Grimsby, and if you 
will look on the map, you will find that so it is called to this 
very day. 

Now Grim was a very good fisherman, and he decided to 
make his living here in England by fishing. Many a good 
fish he took from the sea, with net and spear and hook. He 
had four large baskets made, one for himself and one for 
each of his three sons, and when they had caught their fish, 
off they carried them to the people in the towns and country, 



HAVELOK THE DANE 123 

to sell them. Sometimes they went as far inland as the good 
town of Lincoln. 

Thus they lived peacefully and happily for ten years or 
more, and by this time Havelok was become a youth full 
grown. But Grim never told Ilavelok who he was, nor did 
he tell any of his three sons or two daughters. And Havelok 
soon entirely forgot all about what had happened to him in 
Denmark. And so he grew up, happy as the days were long, 
and astonishingly healthy and strong. He was big of bone 
and broad of shoulder and the equal of a man in strength. 

Now after a time, Havelok began to think to himself that 
Grim was working very hard to make a living, while he was 
amusing himself in ease and idleness. "Surely," said he to 
himself, "I am no longer a boy. I am big and strong, and 
alone I eat more than Grim and his five children. It 's high 
time for me to bear baskets and work for my living. No 
longer will I stay at home, but to-morrow I too shall go forth 
and sell fish." And so in the morning, as soon as it was 
light of day, he put a basket on his back, as the others did, 
piled high with fish, as much as a good strong man might 
carry. But Havelok bore the burden well, and he sold the fish 
well, and the money he brought back home to Grim, every 
penny of it. Thus Havelok became a fisherman ; he went forth 
every day with his basket on his back and sold fish, and was 
the tallest and strongest monger of them all. 

Now it happened after a time that Grim fared not so well 
with his fishing. The fish would not come to his nets, and 
with no fish in the nets, there was none for the baskets and for 
market. To make matters worse, at this same time there was a 
great famine in the land, and poor people suffered greatly 
from lack of food to eat. These were hard times for Grim 
and his houseful of children. Yet less for his own did Grim 
grieve than for the sturdy Havelok. Moreover, Grim had long 
thought that this work of fishing and fish-selling, though 
good enough for himself and his three sons, was hardly the 
right life for Havelok, who, though he knew nothing about it, 
was nevertheless a king's son. 



124 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

"Havelok, my boy," said he, at length, '*it is not well for 
thee to dwell here too long with us. Though it will grieve us 
sorely to have thee go, out into the world thou must venture, 
and perhaps there thou shalt make thy fortune. Here thou 
seest we are but miserable fisher- folk ; but at Lincoln, the 
fine city, there thou mayst find some great man whom thou 
canst serve. But, alas!" he added, "so poor are we that thou 
hast not even a coat wherein to go." 

Then Grim took down the shears from the nail and made 
Havelok a coat out of the sail to his boat, and this was Grim's 
last gift to Havelok. No hose and no shoes had Havelok to 
wear, but barefoot and naked, except for his long coat of sail- 
cloth, he left his good friends Grim and Dame Leve and their 
five children and set out for the town of Lincoln. 

When Havelok reached Lincoln, he wandered about be- 
wildered in the streets of the city. But nobody seemed to 
have any use for him; nobody wanted to exchange the 
strength of his powerful arms for food to eat. As he wan- 
dered from one street to another, Havelok grew hungrier and 
hungrier. By great good chance, however, he passed by the 
bridge where the market was, and there stood a great earl's 
cook, who was buying fish and meat and other food for the 
earl's table. Now he had just finished buying when Havelok 
happened along, and the cook shouted, "Porter, porter!" for 
somebody to come to carry his marketing home. Instantly 
ten or a dozen jumped for the chance, for there were plenty 
of men looking for work in Lincoln. But Havelok got ahead 
of them all ; he pushed them this way and that and sent them 
sprawling head over heels, and seized hold of the cook's 
baskets, without so much as a "By your leave." Rough and 
ready was the young Havelok, as strong as a bear and as 
hungry as a savage. He made quick time of the journey to 
the cook's kitchen, and there he was well fed as pay for his 
labor. 

By the next day, however, Havelok 's stomach was again 
empty. But he knew the time at which the earl's cook came 
to the market, and he waited there for him. Again when the 
cook had finished buying, he called out "Porter, porter!" 



HAVELOK THE DANE 125 

and again the husky Havelok shoved the rest right and left 
and carried off the cook 's baskets. He spared neither toes nor 
heels until he came to the earl's castle and had put down his 
burden in the kitchen. 

Then the cook, whose name was Bertram, stood there and 

looked at Havelok and laughed. ' ' This is certainly a stalwart 

fellow enough," he thought. "Will you stay with me?" he 

said finally to Havelok. ' ' I will feed you well, and well you 

[ seem to be able to pay for your feeding." 

And Havelok was glad enough to take the offer. ''Give 
me but enough to eat, ' ' he answered, ' ' and I will build your 
fires and carry your water, and I can make split sticks to 
skin eels with, and cut wood and wash dishes, and do any- 
thing you want me to do. ' ' 

] The cook told Havelok to sit down and eat as much as he 
'wanted, and you can be sure Havelok was not slow in accept- 
ing this invitation. When he had satisfied his hunger, 
I Havelok went out and filled a large tub of water for the 
I kitchen, and, to the cook's great astonishment, he carried it 
(in, without any help, in his own two hands. Such a cook's 
knave had never been seen in that kitchen before! 
, So Havelok became a kitchen-boy in a great earl's castle. 
He was always gay and laughing, blithe of speech and 
I obliging, for he was young and thoughtless and healthy, and 
happy so long as he had something to put into his stomach. 
jHe played with the children and they all loved him, for, with 
iall his great strength and stature, he was as gentle as the 
j gentlest child among them. And Bertram, the cook, seeing 
I that Havelok had nothing to wear except his old sail-cloth 
eoat that Grim had made for him, bought Havelok a brand- 
Inew coat and hose and shoes; and when Havelok was dressed 
I up in his new clothes, there was not a finer fellow in the whole 
I country. He stood head and shoulders above the rest when 
I the youths came together for their games at Lincoln, and no 
I one ever tried a round at wrestling with Havelok without 
j being thrown almost before he knew it. He was the tallest 
land strongest man in all that region, and, what was better, 
I be was as good and gentle as he was strong. 



126 MODEKN ESSAYS AND STOKIES 

Now, as it happened, the earl in whose kitchen Havelok 
served as kitchen-boy to Bertram the cook was that very Earl 
Godrich to whom old King Athelwold had entrusted his 
daughter, Goldborough, for protection. Goldborough was 
now a beautiful young princess, and Godrich realized that 
something must soon be done for her. But Godrich had be- 
come the strongest baron in all England ; and though he had 
not forgotten his promises to Athelwold, little did he think to 
let the power, to which he had gi'own so accustomed, pass into 
the hands of another. For though the beautiful Goldborough 
was now old enough to be made queen, the traitorous Godrich 
had decided in his heart that queen she should never be, but 
that when he died, his son should be made king after him. 

Just about this time it happened that Earl Godrich sum- 
moned a great parliament of all the nobles of England to 
meet at Lincoln. When the parliament met, there was a great 
throng of people there from all over England, and the bus- 
tling city was very gay and lively. Many young men came 
thither with their elders, bent on having a good time, strong 
lads fond of wrestling and other such games. Now these 
young men were amusing themselves one day in one way and 
another, and finally they began to "put the stone." The 
stone was big and heavy, and it was not every man who could 
lift it even as high as his knees. But these strong fellows 
who had come to Lincoln in the train of the mighty barons 
could lift it up and put it a dozen or more feet in front of 
them ; and the one who put it the farthest, if it was only an 
inch ahead of the rest, he was counted the champion at 
putting the stone. 

Now these stout lads were standing around and boasting 
about the best throws, and Havelok stood by listening. He 
knew nothing about putting the stone, for he had never done 
it or seen it done before. But his master, Bertram the cook, 
was also there, and he insisted that Havelok should have a 
try at it. So Havelok took up the great stone, and at the first 
throw, he put it a foot and more beyond the best throw of the 
others. 

The news of Havelok 's record throw in some way spread 



HAVELOK THE DANE 127 

abroad, how he had beaten all these strong lads, and how tall 
and powerful he was. And finally the knights in the great 
hall of the castle began speaking of it, and Earl Godrich 
listened, for he had suddenly thought of a way to keep his 
promise. In a word, it was this: King Athelwold had made 
him swear on the Holy Book that he would give his daughter 
in marriage to the highest and strongest in the realm of 
England. Now where could he find a higher and stronger 
than this Havelok? He would marry the king's daughter to 
this kitchen-boy, and thus, though in a way that the old king 
never dreamed of, he would keep his promise and still leave 
the road free for himself and his son after him. 

Godrich straightway sent for Goldborough, and told her 
that he had found a husband for her, the tallest and fairest 
I man in all England. And Goldborough answered that no 
[ man should wed her unless he was a king or a king's heir. 
I At this Godrich grew very angry. "Thou shalt marry 
'whom I please!" he commanded. "Dost thou think thou 
' shalt be queen and lady over me ? I will choose a husband 
I for thee. To-morrow shalt thou wed my cook's kitchen-boy 
* and none other, and he shall be lord over thee. ' ' 
I Goldborough wept and prayed ; but she could not turn 
' Godrich from his shameful purpose. 

Then Godrich sent for Havelok, and when he had come 
; before him, he said, "Fellow, do you want a wife?" 
I "Nay, truly," said Havelok, "no wife for me! What 
' should I do with a wife? I have neither clothing nor shoes 
I nor food for her, neither house nor home to put her in. I 
I own not a stick in the world, and even the coat I bear on my 
! back belongs to Bertram the cook." 

I But Godrich told Havelok he must marry the wife he had 
I chosen for him, willy-nilly, or he should suffer for it. And 
finally Havelok, for fear of his life, consented, and Gold- 
borough was sent for, and the Archbishop of York came, and 
( soon they were married, one as unwilling as the other. 

But when the wedding was over, and gifts had been given 
to Goldborough, rich and plenty, Havelok was perplexed. 
He beheld the beauty of Goldborough and was afraid to re- 



128 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

main at Godrich's castle for fear of treachery that might 
befall her. For Goldborough now had only Havelok to pro- 
tect her, since the kitchen-boy had become her lord and mas- 
ter, and Havelok, with a man's courage, determined to de- 
fend her to the best of his ability. The first thing to do, as 
it seemed to him, was to go back to Grim's cottage, there to 
think over the matter carefully before acting further. And 
straightway, in company with Goldborough, he set out se- 
cretly for the little cot by the seashore. 

When Havelok and Goldborough came to Grim's house, 
he found that there had been many sad changes during the 
time he had been living in Lincoln. In the first place, the 
good Grim had died, and also his wife. Dame Leve. But the 
three sons of Grim and his two daughters were still living at 
Grimsby, and they still caught the fish of the sea and carried 
them about in baskets to sell them. The oldest of these sons 
was called Robert the Red, and, of the remaining two, one 
was named William Wendout, and Hugh the Raven the other. 
They were filled with joy when they found that their foster- 
brother, Havelok, had come back to them, and they prepared 
a fine dinner for him and Goldborough. And Robert the Red 
begged Havelok now to stay with them at Grimsby and be 
their chief and leader. They promised to serve him faith- 
fully, and their two sisters were eager to care for all the 
needs of Goldborough, his wife. But for the time being, 
Havelok put them off, for he had not yet decided what would 
be the best course for him to follow. 

Now that night, as Goldborough lay awake, sad and sorrow- 
ful, she was suddenly aware of a bright light, surrounding, 
as it seemed, the head of the sleeping Havelok. Then at the 
same time, there came a voice, she could not tell whence, 
which said to her : ' ' Goldborough, be no longer sorrowful, for 
Havelok, who hath wedded thee, is a king's son and heir. 
Upon his shoulder he bears a royal birthmark to prove it. 
The day shall come when he will be king both in Denmark 
and in England, and thou shalt be of both realms queen and 
lady." 



HAVELOK THE DANE 129 

Now just at this same time, Havelok dreamed a strange 
dream ; and when he awoke, he told his dream to Goldborough. 
He dreamed that he was sitting on a high hill in Denmark, 
and when he stretched out his arms, they were so long that 
they reached to the farthest limits of the land ; and when he 
drew his arms together to his breast, everything in Denmark, 
all the towns, and the country, and the lordly castles, all 
cleaved to his arms and were drawn into his embrace. Then 
he dreamed that he passed over the salt sea with a great host 
of Danish warriors to England, and that all England like- 
wise came into his power. 

When Goldborough heard this dream, she thought straight- 
Way of the strange light she had seen over Havelok 's head 
and the voice that she had heard, and she interpreted it to 
biean that Havelok should be king over Denmark and after- 
(Ward over England. 

She knew not how this should come to pass, but unhesitat- 
ingly advised Havelok to prepare to set sail for Denmark. 
Her plan was this : that they should buy a ship, and take 
Grim's three sons, Robert the Red, William Wendout, and 
Hugh the Raven, with them, and, when they came to Den- 
dark, pretend that they were merchants until they could 
find out what course to follow. And when this plan was told 
to the three sons of Grim, they immediately agreed to it, for 
they were ready to follow Havelok wherever he went. And 
now, also, Havelok for the first time learned who his father 
^as, and that he was really heir to the throne of Denmark, 
^or Grim, before he left Denmark, had told all of Havelok 's 
Story to a cousin of his, and she now, for she was still alive 
and had come to stay with Grim's family at Grimsby, told 
Havelok all about Earl Godard's treachery. Happy indeed 
was Goldborough when she heard this story, and they were 
all more anxious than ever to set out for Denmark, They 
got a good ship ready, and it was not long before all were well 
on their way. 

When the ship reached Denmark, they all went up on land 
and journeyed forth until they came to the castle of the great 
Danish baron, Earl Ubbe, Now Ubbe had been a good friend 



130 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

of Havelok's father, the former King Birkabeyn, and a good 
man and true was he. When they reached Ubbe's castle, 
Havelok sent word that they were merchants, come to trade 
in Ubbe's country, and, as a present, he sent in to Ubbe a 
gold ring with a precious stone in the setting. 

When Ubbe had received this generous gift, he sent for 
Havelok to come to see him. When the young man came, 
Ubbe was greatly struck by Havelok's broad shoulders and 
sturdy frame, and he said to himself: "What a pity that this 
chapman is not a knight! He seems better fitted to wear a 
helmet on his head and bear a shield and spear than to buy 
and sell wares. ' ' But he said nothing of this to Havelok, and 
only invited him to come and dine in the castle and to bring 
his wife, Goldborough, with him. And Ubbe promised that 
no dishonor should be done either to one or the other, and 
pledged himself as their protector. And when the dinner 
was over, Ubbe, who had taken a great liking to both Havelok 
and Goldborough, entrusted them to the safe-keeping of one 
of his retainers, a stout and doughty warrior whose name was 
Bernard the Brown. To Bernard's house, therefore, Havelok 
and Goldborough went, and there too were lodged Robert the 
Red and William Wendout and Hugh the Raven. 

Now when they had reached Bernard 's house, and Bernard 
and Havelok and Goldborough were sitting there peacefully at 
supper, the house was suddenly attacked by a band of fierce 
robbers. Travelers were not as safe in Denmark as they were 
in England in the days of the strong King Athelwold, and 
these robbers, thinking that Havelok must be a very rich man, 
since he had given so valuable a ring to the Earl Ubbe, were 
come now, a greedy gang, to see if they could get hold of 
some of his treasure. Before Bernard and his guests were 
aware of them, the robbers had reached the door, and they 
shouted to Bernard to let them in or they would kill him. 
But the valiant Bernard recalled that his guests were in his 
safe-keeping ; and shouting back that the robbers would have 
to get in before they could kill him, he jumped up and put 
on his coat of mail and seized an ax and leaped to the door- 
way. Already the robbers were battering at the door, and 



HAVELOK THE DANE 131 

they took a huge boulder and let it fly against the door, so 
that it shivered to splinters. Then Havelok mixed in the fray. 
He seized a heavy wooden door-tree, which was used to bar 
the door, and when the robbers tried to break through the 
door, he laid on right and left. It was not long before 
Robert and "William and Hugh, in the other part of the 
house, heard the din and came rushing up ; and then the fight 
was on, fast and furious. Robert seized an oar and William 
and Hugh had great clubs, and these, with Bernard's ax and 
Havelok 's door-tree, made it lively enough for the robbers. 
But especially Havelok and his door-tree made themselves felt 
there. The robbers, for all they were well armed with shields 
and good long swords, were compelled to give way before the 
flail-like strokes of Havelok 's door-tree. When they saw their 
comrades falling right and left, those that were still able to 
do so took to their legs and ran away. Some harm they did, 
however, while the fray lasted, for Havelok had a severe 
'sword-wound in his side, and from se^^eral other gashes the 
'blood was flowing freely. 

] In the morning, when Bernard the Brown told Ubbe of the 
(attacks of the robbers, Ubbe swore that he would bring them 
to punishment ; and he also took further measures to protect 
jHavelok. When he heard that Havelok was wounded, he had 
him brought to his own castle and gave him a room right next 
•to his own. 

I Now that night, when Havelok lay asleep in his room and 
jUbbe in the room next to it, about the middle of the night 
tUbbe was awakened, and thought he saw a light on the other 
)side of the door. ' ' What 's this ? " he said to himself. ' ' What 
^mischief are they up to in there?" And he got up to see if 
jeverything was all right with his new friend the chapman. 
I Now when Ubbe peeped through a crack in the door, he 
saw a strange sight. For there was Havelok peacefully sleep- 
ling, and over his head there gleamed the miraculous light 
.that Goldborough had seen and that had caused Grim to spare 
ihis life when he was a little child. And looking closer, Ubbe 
{saw something more. For the cover was thrown back, and he 
Isaw on Havelok 's shoulder the royal birthmark, and he knew 



132 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

immediately that this was the son of his old friend and king, 
Birkabeyn, and the rightful heir to the throne of Denmark. 
Eagerly he broke open the door and ran in and fell on his 
knees beside Havelok, acknowledging him as his lawful lord. 

As soon as Havelok realized that he was not dreaming, he 
saw that good fortune had at last put him in the way of 
winning back his rights. 

And it had indeed, for Ubbe immediately set to work get- 
ting together an army for Havelok. It was not long before 
Havelok had a fine body of fighters ready to follow wherever 
he led them, and then he thought it was time to seek out his 
old enemy, Earl Godard. Before this, however, there was 
another thing to be done, and that was to make knights of 
Robert and William and Hugh. They were given the stroke 
on the shoulder with the flat of the sword by Earl Ubbe and 
thus were dubbed knights. They were granted land and 
other fee, and they became as brave and powerful barons as 
any in Denmark. 

When Havelok had his plans all made, he set out to find 
Earl Godard. It was Robert the Red who had the good 
fortune first to meet with him. But Godard was no coward, 
and was not to be taken without struggle for his freedom. He 
defended himself as best he could, but his followers soon 
became frightened and took to their heels, leaving the 
wretched Godard a helpless prisoner in the hands of Robert. 
Havelok was glad enough to have Godard in his power at 
last, but he made no effort to punish Godard for the injuries 
he had done to him personally. It was as a traitor to his 
king and his country that Godard was now held prisoner. 
When the time of the trial came, by the judgment of his peers, 
Godard was convicted of treason and sentence of death was 
passed upon him. 

When peace had again been restored throughout Denmark, 
then the people all joyfully accepted Havelok as their king 
and the beautiful Goldborough as their queen. 

One thing still remained for Havelok to do in England 
after affairs had all been settled in Denmark — there still 
remained an accounting with Earl Godrich. And so, as soon 



HAVELOK THE DANE 133 

as he had got his army together, Havelok and Goldborough 
went on board ship and sailed over the sea, and soon they 
were again back at Grimsby. The earl was ready for him, 
too, for he had heard of Havelok 's arrival in England, and 
he thought he could make quick work of his former kitchen- 
boy. But Havelok the man, with a Danish army at his back, 
was a quite different person from Havelok the boy, who car- 
ried the cook's baskets from market and distinguished himself 
only by his record at putting the stone. And this difference 
Earl Godrich was soon to discover. 

It was Ubbe, this time, who had the first meeting with 
Godrich. Ubbe claimed Godrich as his prisoner, but Godrich 
immediately drew his sword in self-defense. They fought 
long and fiercely, and Godrich was decidedly getting the 
better of it, when Havelok fortunately appeared upon the 
scene. Havelok demanded that Godrich should yield himself 
as his prisoner, but for answer Godrich only rushed at 
Havelok all the more fiercely with his drawn sword, and so 
violent was his attack, that he succeeded in wounding Have- 
lok. At this, Havelok 's patience gave out, and exerting all 
his powerful strength, in a short time he overcame Godrich 
and disarmed him and bound him hand and foot. Then 
Havelok had Godrich carried before a jury of his peers in 
England, where he was made to answer to the charge of 
treason, just as Godard had been made to do in Denmark. 

All the English barons acknowledged that Goldborough 
was their true queen, and that Godrich was a tyrant and 
usurper. And since not only plain justice, but also the 
welfare of the kingdom, demanded it, the barons passed the 
sentence of death upon the traitorous Earl Godrich. "With 
much feasting and celebration, Havelok and Goldborough 
were taken in triumph to London, and there were crowned 
king and queen of England. Thus Goldborough 's dream had 
come to pass, for she was now queen and lady and Havelok 
was lord and king over both Denmark and England. 

But since Havelok could not be in both countries at one 
time, and since his Danish friends were eager to get back 
again to Denmark, now that their work in England was fin- 



134 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

ished, Havelok made Ubbe ruler over Denmark in his place, 
and he remained in England. Moreover there were other old 
friends who were also richly deserving of reward. Of these, 
one was Bertram the cook, Havelok 's former master, who 
had fed him when he was starving. Bertram was made a 
rich baron, and he was married to one of Grim's daughters, 
who were still living at Grimsby, but who, of course, had now 
become great ladies. The other daughter was married to 
Reynes, Earl of Chester, who was a brave young bachelor and 
glad enough to get so beautiful and so highly favored a wife 
as Havelok gave him. Robert the Red and William Wendout 
and Hugh the Raven all remained in England, where they 
married rich and beautiful wives, and became Havelok 's 
right-hand men in the good government of the country. 

And you can be sure the country was now again well 
governed. As in the days of the good King Athelwold, a 
traveler might bear a bag full of red gold on his shoulder 
from one end of England to the other, and be as safe as 
though he were guarded by an army of soldiers. Loved by 
their subjects and feared by their enemies, thus in peace and 
contentment King Havelok and Queen Goldborough dwelt 
together many a long year in England, and their children 
grew up around them. They had passed through their trials 
and tribulations, and at last only good days were in store for 
them. 

This is the end. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What advantage does the author gain by using a somewhat 

archaic style? 

2. Why does he tell the story with almost the same simplicity that 

marks the original story? 

3. What events show the character of Havelok? 

4. What is the character of Grim? 

5. What is the character of Goldborough? 

6. In what respects are Carl God rich and Earl Godard alike? 

7. Show that the story is like some of the familiar nursery legends. 



HAVELOK THE DANE 135 

8. Outline the principal events of the narrative. 

9. Which events are most impressive? 

10. Point out local allusions in the story. 

11. In what respects is Havelok truly royal? 

12. Point out any uses of the supernatural. 

13. Is Bertram a realistic or a romantic character? 

14. Point out exceedingly human touches in the story. 

15. Point out the emphasis of noble characteristics. 

16. Show how description adds to the effectiveness of the story. 

17. Show how the story resembles other stories you have read. 

18. What reasons have made the story Live for a thousand years? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Uncle Tom's Cabin 11. Robinson Cmsoe 

2. Washington's Boyhood 12. Rip Van Winkle 

3. The Story of Treasure Island 13. The Story of Portia 

4. The Story of Ivanhoe 14. The Story of Rosalind 

5. The Vision of Sir Launfal 15. The Story of Viola 

6. Lancelot and Elaine 16. Silas Mamer 

7. Robin Hood and His Men 17. The Ancient Mariner 

8. Huckleberry Finn 18. The Black Knight 

9. Tom Sawyer 19. King Arthur 
10. Ben Hur 20. Joan of Arc 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

You are to re-tell an old story. Select one with which you are 
entirely familiar. Tell it very simply and plainly, but try very hard 
to give it the quality of human interest. Make your readers sympa- 
thize with your hero and heroine. Tell a number of dramatic 
episodes, selecting those that do most to emphasize character. Make 
your story move very quickly, and make its action very vivid and 
intense. Give emphasis to good characteristics. 



THE STORY ESSAY 
POLITICS UP TO DATE 

By FEEDERICK LEWIS ALLEN 

(1890 — ). A contributor to many magazines. At different 
times he served as Instructor in English at Harvard, and as a 
member of the editorial staff of The Atlantic Monthly, and of 
The Century. 

The short story and the essay may be combined in what may be called 
the story -essay or the dialogue-essay. Many of Addison's Sir Boger de 
Coverley essays illustrate such a combination. 

Politics Up To Date is really a critical essay, directed against certain 
tendencies in political campaigns in the United States, but it is pre- 
sented in the form of a dialogue between a young politician and an old 
politician. It is very effective in its satire. 

"So you'7e come to me for advice, have you?" said the Old 
Politician to the Young Politician. "You want to know how 
to succeed in politics, do you?" 

The Young Politician inclined his head. 

" I do, " he replied. ' ' Will you tell me ? " 

The Old Politician was silent for a moment. 

* ' Times change, ' ' he said at last, * ' and I dare say there are 
new issues now in politics that there were n 't in the good old 
days. The technic is somewhat different, too. However, the 
basic principles remain the same, and, after all, the issues 
don't really matter; it 's what you say about them that 
counts, and I can tell you what to say about them. Very 
well, I '11 advise you. First of all, if you 're running for 
office in these days, you must run as a hundred-per-cent. 
American candidate." 

The Young Politician's eye clouded with perplexity. 

"What is Americanism," he asked, "and how does one 
figure it on a percentage basis ? ' ' 

136 



POLITICS UP TO DATE 137 

The Old Politician brought down his fist on the table with 
a crash. 

* ' You aspire to political office, and ask questions like that ! ' ' 
he exclaimed in a voice of wrath. "Never question what 
hundred-per-cent. Americanism is, even to yourself. If you 
do, somebody else will question, too. Nothing could be more 
fatal. Don 't try to define it ; assert it. Say you 're hundred 
per cent, and your opponent isn't. Intimate that if George 
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln went 
over your opponent with a slide rule and an adding-machine, 
they could n 't make him add up to more than ninety -nine per 
cent. If he 's out for a seven-cent fare or a new set of 
municipal waterworks, tell the people that such things are 
un-American. Say that he 's dodging the issue, and the issue 
is Americanism." He paused. "If you were my opponent, 
and asked what Americanism is, I 'd double you up. ' Think 
of it, my fellow-citizens! He doesn't even know what 
Americanism is ! Is that the kind of man to hold office in the 
country of Washington and Lincoln?' " 

The Young Politician looked round uneasily to make sure 
that they were indeed alone, for the Old Politician was almost 
shouting. 

"Please," said the Young Politician, "not so loud. I won't 
ask that question again. I see your point. What else do 
you advise?" 

"You must learn," continued the Old Politician, "to be a 
good denouncer." 

"A good what?" 

"Denouncer. Keep your eyes open for objects of popular 
disapproval, and when you 're sure you 've got hold of some- 
thing that is heartily disapproved by the great majority of 
the people, denounce it. At present I should advise you to 
denounce the high cost of living, the profiteers, and the Bol- 
shevists. Next year, of course, the list may be quite different, 
but for the present those three are the best objects of de- 
nunciation. ' ' 

"What bothers me," suggested the Young Politician in a 
hesitating voice, ' ' is that it may be rather hard to drag those 



138 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

things into the campaign. Suppose, for example, I *m 
pledged to broaden the Main Street of the city upon my 
election to the city council. Won 't it be rather hard to tie the 
Main Street and the Bolshevists together?" 

The Old Politician looked upon the troubled face of the 
Young Politician with disgust. 

"You 're a great politician, you are," he said wearily. 
"Tie them together? Don't be so ridiculously logical." He 
rose to his feet, and as he did so he smote the table once more 
with his fist. " Gen-tle-men, " he cried hoarsely, surveying 
an imaginary audience with his glittering eye, "there is a 
movement on foot in this very county, this very State, nay, 
this veiy city, to undermine our Congress, to topple over the 
Constitution, to put a bomb under our President! Con- 
fronted by such a menace to our democratic institutions, 
what, gentlemen, shall be our answer? Let us broaden Main 
Street, as Washington would have broadened it, as Lincoln 
would have broadened it, and let us put down the red flag 
wherever it shows its head ! ' ' 

"Its mast," corrected the Young Politician, visibly moved. 
"Thank yoa for those courageous, those hundred-per-cent. 
words. I shall try to strike that note. But there is something 
else I want to ask. Suppose I am elected. What shall I do 
while I hold office in order that I may become ultimately 
eligible for still higher office?" 

"In that case," replied the old man, who by this time had 
subsided into his chair, "you must not merely denounce the 
high cost of living, the profiteers, and the Bolshevists; you 
must campaign against them. ' ' 

' ' But suppose I am a commissioner of roads or an attorney- 
general," queried the Young Politician. "In that case, 
clearly such things lie outside my province. How can I 
campaign against them?" 

"My dear young man," said the Old Politician, with a 
weary smile, "don't bother about your province, as you call 
it. Your job will undoubtedly be uninteresting and the 
public won't know anything about it or care anything about 



POLITICS UP TO DATE 139 

it, and the test of your success will be your ability to conduct 
campaigns which have nothing to do with your job, and 
therefore stand some chance of interesting the public. There 
is no reason why even an attorney-general should n 't cam- 
paign against anything, provided he handle his campaign 
right. 

"The principal thing to bear in mind is that you must 
begin your campaigns noisily and end them so quietly that the 
sound of their ending is drowned in the noise of the next 
campaign 's beginning. Let 's say you begin with a campaign 
against the high cost of living. First come out with a state- 
ment that you, as attorney-general or commissioner of roads 
or what not, are going to knock the high cost of living to bits, 
and the whole force of the Government will be behind you. 
That will put you on the front page once. Then send out 
telegrams calling a conference to take steps against the cost 
of living. That will put you on the front page again. Then 
when the conference meets, address them, and tell them 
they 've got to make conditions better, simply got to. By the 
way, you ought to have a couple of able secretaries to help 
you with these speeches, or, better still, to do the routine 
work of your office so that there will be nothing to divert your 
mind from your campaigns. Then, after you have the con- 
ference well started, step out. Don't stay with them; they 
may begin asking you for constructive ideas. Step clear of 
the thing, and start a new campaign. 

"I can't over-emphasize the fact that when the conference 
is well started, you must help the public to forget about it, 
and stir up interest in something new. Flay the profiteer 
for a month or two, and get a conference going on profiteers, 
Kap the Bolshevists, and telegraph for a crowd of citizens to 
come and probe the Bolshevists while you 're deciding what 
your next campaign shall be. Don't let the people's minds 
run back to the high cost of living, or they '11 be likely to 
notice that it hasn't gone down. Refer constantly to the 
success of your own campaigns, and keep the public mind 
moving, ' ' 



140 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

The Young Politician was visibly impressed, but appar- 
ently a doubt still lingered in his mind. 

"There 's one thing I 'm afraid I don't quite understand," 
he said at last. "All this denouncing and rapping and prob- 
ing — is n 't it likely to look rather destructive ? Will people 
want to vote for a man whose pleasantest mood is one of 
indignation?" 

"My dear young man," replied the Old Politician, "I fear 
that you misunderstood me. A politician must be always 
pleasant to the people who are about him, and denounce only 
persons who are not present. You should compliment your 
audience when speaking. Be sure to make the right speech 
in the right place ; don 't get off your profiteer speech to the 
Merchants' Association, or they may begin to wonder whether 
they agree with you, but draw their hearts to yours with your 
anti-Bolshevik speech ; assure them that you and they are 
going to save the nation from red ruin. Denunciation is 
pleasant if it 's somebody else who is getting denounced. Tell 
the merchants or the newspaper publishers or the party com- 
mitteemen, or whoever it is that you are addressing, that they 
are the most important element in the community and that 
the war could not have been won if they had not stepped 
forward to a man and done their duty. That 's good to hear. 

"Finally, give them a little patriotic rapture. Tell them 
this is a new age we 're in. Picture to them the capitalist and 
working-man walking hand in hand with their eyes on the 
flag. Make the great heart of America throb for them. Un- 
pleasant? Why, if you top off with a heart-throb, you can 
make the most denunciatory speech delightful for one and 
all." 

The Young Politician rose. 

"I see," he said. "Thank you. Have you any other 
advice ? ' ' 

"Merely one or two minor hints," said the Old Politician. 
"If the photographers want to take your picture teaching 
your baby to walk, let them do it ; the public loves the home 
life of its leader. Always be affable to the reporters, but 
never state your views explicitly, or you may find them 



POLITICS UP TO DATE 141 

embarrassing at some later date. Stick to generalities. I 
think that 's all. ' ' 

' ' Thank you again, ' ' said the Young Politician, putting out 
his hand. "You are very good. You 're — " An idea 
seemed to seize his mind, and his bearing perceptibly altered. 
"You, sir, are a good American. I 'm always delighted to 
have an evening with a man who is absolutely one-hundred- 
per-cent. patriotic American to the core." 

"Good night," said the Old Politician. "You 're getting 
it very nicely. I think you '11 do well. ' ' 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What advantage is gained by presenting the thought through 

the medium of dialogue? 

2. What is the character of the Old Politician? 

3. Explain the writer's satire of the use of "Americanism." 

4. What are the Old Pohtician's principles concerning denun- 

ciation ? 

5. What are the writer's principles? 

6. In what ways does the writer satirize the American public? 

7. How does the writer satirize political campaigns? 

8. How does the writer satirize hypocrisy in political life? 

9. How would the writer have a political campaign conducted? 
10. How would the writer have an office holder act? 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. The Good American 11. The Right Kind of Leader 

2. Campaign Speaking 12, Testing Political Speeches 

3. Political Beliefs 13. Good Citizens 

4. Honesty in Public Life 14. How to Vote Conscientiously 

5. A Worthy Office Holder 15. A Genuine Statesman 

6. Political Methods 16. Patriotic Speeches 

7. Denunciation 17. Soap-box Orators 

8. A Political Campaign 18. Diverting Attention 

9. Sincerity 19. Public Servants 

10. Deceiving the Public 20. The American People 



142 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Think of a series of principles in which you strongly believe. 
Imagine two people who will represent definite attitudes toward the 
principles that you have in mind. Write a dialogue between the 
two people, presenting your real thought in the disguise of satire. 
Let your work represent both the beginning and the ending of the 
conversation. As in all other writing, make the ending effective. 



FREE! 

By CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 

(1877 — ). Managing editor of McClure's Magazine. Se 
has written many delightful books, among which are: The 
Quiet Singer, and Other Poems; Jolly Jaunts with Jim; 
Autumn Loiterers; Shaking Hands with England. 

Over two hundred years ago Joseph Addison imagined a character 
whom he called ' ' The Spectator ' ' meeting with various friends and 
discussing with them the life of the times. Through what was said 
by these imaginary beings Addison gave his own shrewd comments on 
foibles and follies. Mr. Towne's "young -old philosopher" is a sort 
of modern ' ' Spectator. ' ' He talks of the drudgery of work, and the 
glowing joy of a holiday, and comes to the sudden realization that the 
world is a world of work in which every one must play his part if he 
is to have real contentment. The essay is Mr. Towne's comment both 
on a life of unvaried drudgery and on a life of idleness. 

"I have wondered what it would seem like to be . . . jogging along 
with nowhere to go save where one pleased." 

The young-old philosopher was speaking. 

"I had a strange experience yesterday. To have spent 
twenty years or so at office work, and then suddenly to ar- 
range one 's affairs so that a portion of the week became one 's 
own — that is an experience, isn't it?" 

We admitted that it was an achievement to be envied. 

"How did you manage it?" was the natural question. 

"That is a detail of little importance," he replied. "Let 
the fact of one's sudden liberty be the point dwelt upon. I 
found myself walking up the avenue at the miraculous hour 
of eleven in the morning, and not going to a desk ! I was 
headed for the park, where I knew the trees had long since 
loaded their branches with leaves, and the grass was so green 
that it made the heart ache with its loveliness. You know 
how perfect yesterday was, a summer day to remember and 
to be grateful for. 

143 



144 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

"To you who have never known what it is to drudge day 
in and day out, this may seem a trifling thing to speak of. 
For myself, a miracle had happened. I could not believe 
that this golden hour was mine completely. I had never seen 
shop-windows with quite this slant of the sun on them. Al- 
ways I had viewed them early or late, or wistfully at noon, 
when the streets were so crowded with other escaped office 
men that I could take no pleasure in what I beheld. Shop- 
windows at eleven in the morning were for the elect of the 
earth. That hour had always heretofore meant for me a 
manuscript to be read or edited, a conference to be attended, 
a telephone call to be answered, a visit from some one seeking 
advice — something, at any rate, that made it impossible for 
me to call it my own. I have looked often from a high 
window at that hour, and seen the people in the streets as 
they trailed like ribbons round and round the vast city, and 
I have wondered what it would seem like to be one of them, 
not hurrying on some commercial errand, but jogging along 
with nowhere to go save where one pleased. 

"At last my dream had come true, and when I found 
myself projected upon that thrilling avenue, and realized 
that I had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do until luncheon- 
time, and I could skip that if I wished, I could scarcely be- 
lieve that it was I who had thus broken the traces. 

"The green of the park greeted me, and, like Raleigh's 
cloak,^ a gay pattern of flowers was laid at the entrance for 
even my unworthy feet metaphorically to tread. And to 
think that these bright blooms unfolded here day after day 
and I had so seldom seen them ! An old man dozed on a 
bench near at hand, oblivious to the beauty around him; and 
a septuagenarian gardener leaned over the circular border, 
just as Narcissus ^ looked into the pool. Perhaps he saw 
some image of his youth in the uplifted face of a flower. 

"I know that I saw paths and byways everywhere that 

*Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have laid his cloak in the mud so that 
Queen Elizabeth might pass without soiling her garments. 

* Narcissus. A Greek myth tells of a young man named Narcissus 
who, leaning over a pool, fell in love with his own refleetion, and 
changed into a flower. 



FEEEI 145 

reminded me of my vanished boyhood ; for I am one of those 
who have always lived in Manhattan, and some of the hap- 
piest days I ever spent were those in the park as a child, 
seeing the menagerie, feeding the squirrels, and rolling a 
hoop on a graveled pathway. 

"I remembered Rossetti's line,^ 'I have been here before,' 
as I walked along on this exultant morning; and it indeed 
seemed as if in some previous incarnation, and not in this life, 
I had known my footsteps to take this perfumed way. For 
in the hurry of life and in the rush of our modern days we 
forget too soon the leisure of childhood, plunging as we do 
into the rough-and-tumble of an agonized manhood. 

"And all this was while the park, like a green island set in 
a throbbing sea, had waited for me to come back to it! No 
lake isle of Innesfree* could have beguiled the poet more. 
Anchored at a desk, I had dreamed often of such an hour 
of freedom; and now that it was really mine, I determined 
that I would not analyze it, but that I would simply drink 
in its wonder. It would have been as criminal as to pluck a 
flower apart. 

' ' Policemen went their weary rounds, swinging their sticks, 
and it suddenly came to me that even in this sylvan retreat 
there was stern labor to be done. Just as some one, some 
time, must sweep out a shrine, — possibly nowadays with a 
vacuum-cleaner! — so papers must be picked from God's 
grass, and pick-pockets must be diligently looked for in holi- 
day crowds. Men on high and practical sprinkling-carts 
must keep the roadways clean, and emissaries of the law must 
see to it that motorists do not speed too fast. You think of 
ice-cream as being miraculously made in a park pavilion, and 
unless you visit the city woodland at the hour of eleven or so 
in the morning, you may keep your dream. But I beheld a 

* Dante Gabriel Kosetti (1828-1882). An English poet of Italian 
and English descent. His poems are marked by beauty of form, 
symbolism and color. 

*Innesfree. The Irish poet, William Butler Yeats (1864 — ) wtote 
The LaTce Isle of Innisfree in which he imagines Innisfree as an island 
of perfect peace, a place for which he longs when "on the roadway, 
or on the pavements gray." 



146 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

common ice-wagon back up to the door of that cherished 
house of my childhood, and a strong, rough fellow proved 
himself the connecting-link between the waitress and her 
eager little customers. 

' ^ At this hour it was as though I had gone behind the scenes 
of a theater while the stage-hands were busy about their 
necessary labors. Wiring had to be done, — I had forgotten 
that they have telephones even in the park, — and a mason 
was repairing a crumbling wall. How much better to let it 
crumble, I thought. But all my practicality, through my 
sense of strange freedom, had left me, and I was ardent for 
a mad, glad world, where for a long time there would be 
nothing for anybody to do. I wanted masons and policemen 
and icemen and nurse-maids and electricians and keepers of 
zoological gardens to be as free as I, forever and ever. 

"You see, my unexpected holiday had gone to my head, 
and it was a summer morning, and I felt somehow that I 
ought to be working rather than loitering here. 

"I suppose I shall be sane to-morrow, but I wonder if I 
want to be." 

And we all wondered if we did n 't like him better when he 
was just this way, a child with a new toy, or, rather, a child 
with an old toy that he had almost but not quite forgotten 
how to play with. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What advantage does the essajdst gain by using charactei"s to 

express his own thoughts? 

2. What made the philosopher's holiday so notable? 

3. What had been his daily life? 

4. Comment on the various thoughts and fancies that came to the 

philosopher on his holiday. 

5. What is meant by the expression, "An Agonized Manhood"? 

6. What joys does the philosopher find? 

7. Show how his thoughts come back to the idea of work. 

8. In what did his lack of "sanity" consist? 

9. Does the expression, "I suppose I shall be sane to-morrow," 

mean that he will wish to work, or wish to have a holiday, or 
wish for something else? 



FEEE ! 147 

10. What was the toy that he had almost forgotten how to play 

with? 

11. What is the author's purpose? 

12. What evils in modern life does the essay criticize? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. 


School Athletics 


11. 


Selfishness 


2. 


Home Study 


12. 


School Spirit 


3. 


Exercise 


13. 


Good Manners 


4. 


Reading 


14. 


Playing Jokes 


5. 


Writing Letters 


15. 


Carefulness 


6. 


Aiding Others 


16. 


Honesty in School Work 


7. 


Politeness 


17. 


Thoughtfulness 


8. 


Using Reference Books 


18. 


Practising Music Lessons 


9. 


Going to Bed Early 


19. 


Looking Out for Number ( 


^0. 


Obedience 


20. 


"Bluffing" 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

When you have selected a subject that interests you, write out, 
in a single sentence, your one most important thought on that sub- 
ject. Then plan to write an essay that will embody that thought. 

If you are to imitate Mr. Towne's method you will think of a 
typical character who will express your own thought. As soon as 
you have introduced your character — notice how quickly Mr. Towne 
introduced the "young-old philosopher" — lead him to relate an expe- 
rience that made him think about the subject. Write his meditations 
in such a way that they will show all view-points. Let the end of 
your essay indicate, rather than state, the view-point that you wish 
to emphasize. 

Mr. Towne gives his essay many elements of originality and much 
beauty of thought and expression. Imitate his style as well as you 
can. 



THE STORY OF ADVENTURE 
PRUNIER TELLS A STORY 

By T. MORRIS LONGSTRETH 

An American author and lover of natural scenery. His books 
on The Adirondacks, and The Catskills are enticements into 
the mountain world. He is a writer for many periodicals. 

The romantic story of adventure deals with events that are far from 
being the events of daily life. Usually such a story has for its setting 
an unusual scene. 

Prunier Tells a Story deals with events that come into very few lives; 
its setting is a region into which very few people penetrate. The 
principal character, the French-Canadian Prunier, is likewise a type of 
person with whom few are acquainted. 

At the same time, the story is told with a degree of naturalness that 
makes it setm real. The French-Canadian is brought into touch with 
daily life by the presence of his two listeners, who are people of the 
ordinary world, and one of whom is a boy. 

The story is not told merely for wild event: it hangs upon character 
and upon noble purpose. It emphasizes courage, ability, self-sacrifice 
and faith. 

The setting of the story is so used that it contributes in a marked 
degree to the entire effect. As one reads he feels himself in the icy 
north, in the grip of cold and darkness where wild events are altogether 
probable. 

PART I 

THE PILLAR OF CLOUD BY DAY 

It was after supper one November evening, at Wilderness 
House, with the sleet dancing on the eaves and the great 
forest of Wildyrie closing us about with its dark presence, 
when Essex Lad and I stumbled by chance on the fact that 
we did n't have to read books for adventure, but merely touch 
Prunier in some-story-telling place, and then — listen. 

148 



PEUNIER TELLS A STORY 149 

Prunier, you remember, is the blue-shirted, black-hatted 
French- Canadian who lives with us and thinks he works. He 
is a broad-shouldered, husky, simple-faced man of forty, who 
never opens his mouth unless it be to point out a partridge we 
are overlooking or to put in his black pipe. He spent his 
youth in the great Northland, where adventures are as com- 
mon as black flies in a swamp, and yet he had never even 
explained the scar across his cheek, or the white patch on 
his scalp where some other excitement had been registered, 
until that evening when I had closed the Bible. 

' * Tink dat true ? " he had suddenly asked. 

I had been reading them how the Lord God had led Moses 
and the children of Israel across that other wilderness by a 
pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It had 
roused him strangely. 

"I know it true," he said, "for le hon Dieu show me way 
by pillars of cloud and fire aussi. If you want story, I tole 
you dat wan, moi-'mevYie." 

It was our turn to be excited. Here was luck — a vacant 
evening, a hearth fire, and Prunier promising une longue 
histoire, as he called it. We formed a semi-circle before the 
blazing birch, and, with the dull beat of the sleet above us 
for accompaniment, listened for the first word that would 
launch the black-eyed man upon his tale. It was long com- 
ing. He relit the pipe, recrossed his legs, muttered once 
"Pore ole Pierre," and stopped. We ceased to breathe; for 
though I could command him to cut wood and wash dishes, 
I could not force from him a syllable about "Pore ole Pierre" 
until he was good and ready. 

"Monsieur Moses et moi, we have purty hard times in 
wilderness widout doze pillars," he said. 

The Lad and I gave a nervous laugh. I could not fancy 
myself personally conducting forty thousand Hebrews, even 
through Wildyrie, without much assistance. 

"Yaas," he said, "purty hard. I now begin." 

And begin he did, slowly and with his quaint talk seasoned 
with his habitant French, which I '11 have to omit in my 
retelling. 



150 MODEKN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

"It was a night just like this, in my little cabin on "Wolf 
River. It had rained and then frozen, and the dark closed 
in with sleet. A very good night to be indoors, thought ole 
Pierre and I. Ole Pierre was my best friend, an old husky, 
w^ho had been trapping with me four — five years. He knew 
all that men know, I think, as well as all that dogs under- 
stand, and he could smell a werewolf in the twilight." 

"A werewolf, what 's that?" was on the very opening of 
the Lad's lips, but he held back the question. 

"A werewolf, you know," went on Prunier, "is worse 
than real wolf, for it is in the air — a ghost-wolf. That is why 
ole Pierre sometimes howled in his sleep and kept her from 
visiting us. That is why I put a candle in the window every 
dusk-time. As you shall see, it was lucky habit. 

*'Eh hien, that night I was sorting over my traps, for I 
thought it would turn cold after the storm. Then I would 
cross Breknek Place and begin the winter's trapping. 

"Breknek Place is its name, because the sides of Wolf 
River come very close together, almost so near a man can 
jump. Indeed its name is really because a trapper like me 
was surprised by the wolves and ran for it. But he was too 
scared, and missed. They never got his body, the wolves, 
because the river runs so fast down to the Smoky Pool. 
Smoky Pool is a warm cove in the St. Lawrence that freezes 
last, and from which clouds of vapor rise on stiU days into 
the colder air. 

' ' I never intended to be washed down that way, and in the 
summer I feUed a tree from bank to bank, a broad hemlock, 
big enough to run a sledge over, almost ; and that save many 
miles walking up river to Portage du Loup. I never intended, 
either, to be run by the wolves, you bet ! And ole Pierre and 
I were pretty-very careful to be inside at the candle-lighting 
time. 

"That night our cabin was very quiet, like this, for the 
sleet was a little pleasant sound, and ole Pierre was dreaming 
of old hunts, and I was on the floor with the traps, when both 
the dog and I were brought out of our thoughts by a wild 



PRUNTER TELLS A STORY 151 

cry, very faint and far away, but as sharp and sudden as a 
cut of lightning on a summer night. 

"The hair on the back of my neck rises just like ole 
Pierre's, for I know it is the werewolf. And he looks at me 
and whines, for he knows it, too. I rush and light a second 
candle, though I have not too many, and look out the pane. 
But ot course, there is nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard, 
except the moaning of wind in the dark. Yet later I hear a 
noise, very weak, very unsteady, as if a person was approach- 
ing. 

"Ole Pierre howls low in his throat and scratches on the 
door. I reprove him : ' Are you possessed, ole Pierre ? There 
is no soul within sixty — ^seventy miles. And you and I have 
done nothing that should let the werewolf in.' 

"But it was fearful hearing that stealthy approach, stop- 
ping long, then many steps, and a groan. I get out the Bible 
and read fast. But there comes a tap-tap at the door, and I 
tremble so the book almost falls from my hand, and ole Pierre, 
he calls to his saints, too. 

"What is the use of looking out, for who can see a were- 
wolf? 

"Presently there is no noise. The tap-tap stops; and ex- 
cept for a noise as of a bundle of something dropping against 
the door, there is nothing to hear except the dull sleet on the 
eaves, ole Pierre crj'ing in his throat, and the trip-trip of my 
heart that goes like a werewolf pounding on my ribs. A 
voice inside me says open the door. But another voice says 
'That is a werewolf trick and you will be carried away, 
Prunier.' Twenty times my hand is on the bolt. 

' ' At last I can stand it no longer, — that voice inside saying 
to me to open, — and I rush to it and throw it open before I 
have time to think, and a body falls in, against my legs. 
A long, thin body it is, and I hesitate to touch it, for a were- 
wolf can take any form. But a groan comes from it, and I 
have not the heart to push it out into the dark. I prop it by 
the fire and its eyes droop open, 'Food — tie up food.' That 
is the first word it says. 



152 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

"I push some medicine for weakness into his mouth, and 
his life comes back little by little. 'You must take food to 
her, ' he says ; and soon again, ' The ship by Smoky Pool — she 
starves in it — my sister.' 

' ' Indeed, I soon saw that he was faint from long travel and 
no feeding, and perhaps a sickness past thrown in, for he 
faints much between parts of his account. But I gather the 
news that he had come very far from some deserted ship in 
which a sister was starving to death; and alone, since his 
three partners had cleared out. He begged of me to leave 
him and take food for her. He cried out that he was dying, 
and I had to believe him; for death's shadows sat at the 
entrance to his eyes. I made him glad by placing bread be- 
side him, and by putting on my Mackinaw and the pack after 
it, in which I had put food. 

"A fever of uneasiness stirred him between faints until 
I had lit a lantern and called to ole Pierre to follow. Then 
joy shone in his worn eyes, and a blessing on us both followed 
us out into the icy night. 

"With a last look through the window at the stranger, 
who had now, as I thought, closed his eyes in surrender to 
the end, ole Pierre and I turned into the endless forest on our 
long trail to the Smoky Pool. The sleet was freezing as it fell, 
and the rays of my lantern lit the woods, which seemed made 
of marble, the dark trunks glistening, the laden boughs hang- 
ing down like chandeljers in a cathedral, and the shrubs 
glittering like ten million candles as we passed. In such a 
place, I thought, no werewolf dare attack us. 

"Instead, I thought of the trail ahead, the long miles till 
we come to Breknek Place, the long miles after to the ice- 
locked arm of the St, Lawrence near by the Smoky Pool. On 
such an errand we had nothing to fear, though outside the 
lantern-shine it was as dark as the one of Monsieur Moses' 
bad plagues you have read to the Lad so lately. 

"We had got within three — four miles of Wolf River, ole 
Pierre slip-slipping on the ice in front of me, the lantern 
swinging, my pack beginning to feel like a rest, when for 
the second time that night a cry shivers across the distance, 



PEUNIEE TELLS A STORY 153 

an awful sound for a lonely man to hear in the night forest. 

"It is a long howl, fierce and almost gladsome, like when 
the evil one is clutching a new victim. And it is answered 
from the other side of the night by another howl, and then a 
chorus from both sides at once. And then the trail turns, 
and I know the pack of them is not chasing deer far away, 
but chasing me, us. For ole Pierre knows it, too, and crouches 
whining at my feet. Ole Pierre knows there is no escape, 
like me. 

''Have you ever seen a wolf-pack run down a deer by 
turns, leap at its throat, and pull it down ? I have once, near 
Trois Rivieres, from a safe place on a mountain. And it was 
bad enough to be in the safe place, only watching. But that 
night how much worse! I pat ole Pierre on the head and 
tell him to cheer up, there is no use dying three — four times 
ahead of time. And as I say that, I think of that other man 
chased by wolves who had tried to leap at Breaknek Place. 

" 'Tiens! ole Pierre,' I cry, 'let us do better!' And off I 
start at a dead run, feet slipping sideways, lantern swinging, 
pack rising, falling, like a rabbit's hind leg, with ole Pierre 
chasing after. It is less than a mile to the narrow gorge. 
Could we make that, perhaps I could throw the big hemlock 
in and stop them from crossing after us. A revolver is no 
good against a pack, and going up a tree is only putting off 
till to-morrow their big feast on habitant. 

"The quick motion of our running put courage in our 
blood, and after a little while even ole Pierre's brush waves 
higher in the air, as if he had remembered some fight of old, 
and we gallop. We gallop, but the wolves they gallop too. 
First on one side far off, then on the other nearer, and ever 
as the trail winds in a new direction they sound like pack 
on pack of them, although there might have been less than 
ten. It is only late in the winter with us, when the snow is 
deep, that they gather into big packs to pull down the moose. 

"At length, breathless, very tired, but still ahead of them, 
ole Pierre and I come out into the clear space just before the 
ri(ver. It was very slippery with frozen sleet, and I fall 
once — twice ; and ole Pierre slide here — there, like a kitten on 



154 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

new ice. Ahead of us roars the river through the deep gorge. 
Behind on two sides the howling comes from the forest, and 
once, when I look back, I see them. But that can 't be, for it 
is so dark. Yet I imagine I see them — black, racing forms, 
tongues out, muzzles sharp and red, and a green-yellow fire 
from the eyes. 

"And it was so. For before we reach the fallen hemlock, 
our bridge to safety, two come between us and the river. 
"With a yell, I fire straight where they were, but it is too dark, 
too slippery to hit, and they only circle back to wait tUl their 
partners come up. I fling myself down breathless, weak, for 
just two seconds' wind. 

" 'Cross ole Pierre, cross over, man enfant!' And he 
trotted to the long log, but crawled back with his tail drag- 
ging, and whined about me. Black shadows, five, ten, twelve 
maybe, circled outside the ring of my lantern-light, and the 
green-yellow eyes were no imagination now. But they were 
quiet, intent on closing in. With the lantern, which was our 
only salvation from their fangs, in one hand and my revolver 
in the other, I backed to the hemlock, calling to ole Pierre to 
follow. He is trembling, and I soon know why; for when I 
put my foot on our bridge to safety, it cannot stay, and I 
nearly plunge headlong into the rocky stream thirty feet 
below. The log was slippery with frozen mist. We were 
trapped. At our backs, a river not to be crossed; about us, 
a crew of wolves getting bolder every minute. 

' * ' Courage, ole Pierre ! ' I cried ; and I fired once into them. 
There was a shrill howl and cry, and several made a rush 
toward us, instead of away. I drop the lantern to load my 
revolver. Ole Pierre brushes against it, and in a second it 
starts to glide down the slope on the sleet-ice. It goes faster, 
I gaping after it, slips with a flicker over the edge, and we 
hear it crash and tinkle on the rocks down there! 

*'Quel horreur! It was savage. The kerosene flares up, 
and for once I see the whole scene plainly : the gorge, a great 
leap wide at its narrowest, spouting light; the ice-silvered 
hemlock-bridge leading to safety, but uncrossable except for 
a circus-dancer; a fringe of bushes, with the sudden-illumi- 



PRUNIEE TELLS A STOEY 155 

nated forms of strong-shouldered wolves cowering in their 
surprise at the light. 

"Ole Pierre and I had three minutes, — I thought the 
kerosene would last that long, — then darkness, a rush from 
the dark, hot fangs feeling for the throat, and there would be 
no ole Pierre, no Prunier to rescue the girl in the ship from 
starvation. 

"And at the thought of her came the picture of my little 
cabin, the fire we had left, the coziness of it. It made me 
mad — to die! 

" 'Quick, ole Pierre,' I say. 'Allons! We will crawl over 
the bridge,' and I kneel on it. But my knees slip. I sit on 
it and push myself along, until I can see the wrecked lantern, 
going slowly out. I call to ole Pierre, and he comes out two 
— three paces, whines, cries, lies down and trembles. The 
light is fading and when it goes it is our end. But I cannot 
leave ole Pierre. 

"I crawl back and take him in my arms, a very big arm- 
load. The light is fading. I cannot see the bushes. And 
the eyes of the indistinct brutes again begin to gleam. They 
approach the end of the tree. Ole Pierre is too big to carry, 
and I set him down to fix my cartridges so that I can get 
them easily. It is not so long to dawn. If we can hold them 
at the end of the bridge till dawn, we might live. 

''Suddenly a fearful thing happens: the kerosene flares up 
in a dying leap, then the dark rushes at us, and, with a con- 
cert of snarls, the pack comes with it. Ole Pierre is brave, 
but, as they reach us, the rush of them cannot stop on the 
ice, and I feel the hair of one, I hear his jaws. I know that 
they are pushing toward the edge, and in the dark I have to 
feel for ole Pierre. 

"There is an awful melee, and I fire. By the flash I see 
ole Pierre by the brink, with two big wolves upon him. I 
drop my revolver to clutch at him. A dark form leaps at 
me. I have my knife in my teeth. I drive it hard and often, 
sometimes growling like a wolf myself, sometimes calling to 
ole Pierre. 

* * Once more the l^intern flares enough to show the bipod on 



156 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

my knife, the heap of struggling forms flung on my dog, and 
as it dies for the last time I fancy them sliding — ^sliding. I 
rush to save him, but must beat back a great hot-breathed 
creature whose jaws just scrape my scalp. We are all sliding 
together now, faster, faster, toward the edge of the gorge. 
A dripping muzzle tears my cheek, — it is this scar you see, — 
but with both hands I throttle it; and clutching with a sort 
of madness, I hold as we go over the edge — down, all to- 
gether down — Pore ole Pierre!" 

Prunier stopped. For an hour Essex Lad and I had lis- 
tened, more and more intently, until now, when the subdued 
sound of his slow-speaking ceased, we were both gripping the 
edge of our chairs, falling over the edge of that gorge with 
him, sympathetically. I could have imagined the least noise 
into the click of jaws. 

But there was no noise, the Lad sitting perfectly rigid, 
speechless, staring at the man. Presently he put out a hand, 
slowly, and touched the guide as if to make sure that the fall 
had not been fatal. And still neither of us spoke. Prunier 
was going to recommence. He opened his mouth, but it was 
only to yawn. 

"Man Dieu," he said, "but I sleep! It ees very late." 
And the man actually rose. 

"But ^mon Dieu,' " I said, "you can't leave us falling 
over a precipice! "What happened? Tell us at least what 
happened. And you have n 't even mentioned the pillar of 
fire or of smoke." 

"C'est une tres long we histoire." ["It is a very long 
story."] 

"Poor ole Pierre!" said the Lad, as if coming out of a 
dream; "did it kill him?" 

Prunier shook his head, no. "It kill only the wolves we 
landed on — geplump! We had stopped on a gravel ledge, 
with the cold breath of the river rushing by a foot away. I 
never lose sense. I begin chuck wolves into the river. Three 
— four — five, in they go, my back bending, my back straight- 
ening, and gesplash! another howl down-stream! I think I 
never lose sense. But I did. ' ' He stopped again, and rubbed 



PEUNIEE TELLS A STOEY 157 

a slow hand across his summer-tanned brow. "I must have 
losed sense. In the morning there are no animals on the 
ledge." 

"You mean — " began the Lad, and did not finish. 

Prunier nodded. 

"But he would not have lived anyway," I said, to ease 
the pain in his memory. "Ole Pierre could not have lived 
with all the wolf -bites he must have had." 

"I hope he know I was not in my sense," said Prunier. 
*'Alors, dawn came soon, and I cross the stream on big rocks 
and climb up birch sapling to the opposite bank. I look back. 
No sign of wolves. I look forward, no sign of life to the north 
pole, no forest even, just endless plain to the frozen river 
endless far away. 

' ' I give a big groan, for there is no strength in my legs, no 
courage in my heart, and I feel like falling on my knees and 
asking le hon Dieu to show me the way. And it was as if He 
had heard, for suddenly my eye is caught by a thin pillar of 
white ascending into the gray sky. 

" 'Courage,' I said, *it is His sign.' I fixed my torn pack, 
bound up my cheek and scalp, and made over the glassy sur- 
face of the plain straight where the pillar led me. On and 
on I stumbled. I would never have reached my errand's end 
but for that pillar of smoke. And if I had not reached it — " 
Again there was a pause. Then, "I will tell some other 
time," he said, "c'est une longue Mstoire/* 

Not another word could we get from him, and we soon 
turned in. The last thing I remember was the Lad's voice 
coming to me from his bed, "Don't forget, Lucky, we '11 get 
his pillar of fire out of him, too." 

PART II 

THE PILLAR OF FIRE BY NT€fHT 

By next morning our storm of sleet had turned into a half- 
blizzard of snow and we put another great birch log on the 
fire, got out a new can of Prunier 's favorite pipe tobacco, 



158 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

and generally made ready to extract the rest of his story from 
him when he had finished straightening up the kitchen. 

"Yaas," he said, "the next day to the day I was telling 
you about was just such another as this. All that morning I 
walked toward le hon Dieu's pillar of smoke, and in the 
afternoon I reached it, rising from the great whirling pool 
of steaming water into the gray sky that was thickening for 
a great snow — the real beginning of winter. 

"Not far from the Smoky Pool, just as the dead man had 
said it would be, rode the schooner in the ice-locked cove 
where she had been wrecked. All was as still as a scared 
mouse. Behind me rose that white wavering pillar; and in 
front the vessel leaned a little, as if to subside into a wave- 
trough that would never receive her. But silence covered all, 
and I dreaded to enter that ship for fear of what I should isee. 

"But the dead man had been a better brother than he had 
been a ship-pilot, for he had left his sister most of the food ; 
and when my footfalls sounded uncannily loud upon the 
deck, she came running out of the cabin, a thin-cheeked, pale, 
slim woman. How she smiled ! How the smile died from her 
face when she saw it was not her brother, but a stranger, 
torn, bloody-bandaged, ready to drop for fatigue! 

" 'Tell me, tell me quickly, what has happened. Who are 
you?' She steadied herself against the cabin doorway, *Is 
my brother — ^not living?' 

"I had not the heart or the words to tell her at that 
moment that I had left her brother closing his eyes in death 
in my little cabin so far away. I think I asked le hon Dieu 
to put words in my mouth that would not cause her to faint. 
Anyway, the words came from me: 'Your brother sent me, 
I left him — happy.' 

" 'I knew God would not desert me entirely,' she said, 
*When will he return?' 

" 'When U lom, Dieu leads the way,' I said, and I told her 
about the pillar of cloud which had guided me to her. 

"She pointed aloft, and I saw a lantern tied to the mast- 
head. 'I have put it there to light every night until he 
returns/ she said. 'It will be lit many a night/ said I tO 



PEUNIER TELLS A STOEY 159 

myself; and I must have sighed aloud, for she looked curi- 
ously at me. ' I am cruel ! ' she exclaimed ; ' I must show you 
your room.' She said it with almost a laugh, for it was a 
funny little bunk she led me to. Into it I crawled, and off to 
sleep I went, scarcely conscious that she washed the blood 
from my face and ministered to my other wounds. When I 
woke, it was the next day. 

"And such a day as it was! one thick smother of snow 
coming up the great valley of the St. Lawrence on a bitter 
wind. And bitter cold it was, too, in the little cabin of our 
schooner, though the fire in the stove did its best. I was too 
sick^ though, to know much what was going on. Several times 
I heard the chopping of a hatchet. Several times she came 
to me with hot food. And as the day passed, strength came 
back to my blood and I got up. I surprised her lighting the 
lantern and taking it out into the wild evening. I tried to 
stop that, fearing some accident to her in the roar and rush 
of the storm, but she said her brother must be lighted back, 
and so in the end it was I who had to haul the swaying lan- 
tern to the masthead. 

"For three days the snow flew by and heaped an ever- 
increasing drift across the deck, around the cabin door. On 
the fourth day we looked out on a scene of desolation. The 
sun shone dimly in skies of pinching cold. There was no 
pillar of smoke, the pool having at last been frozen over. 
There was a wide river of ice, piled in fantastic floes, a wider 
plain, spotted here and there with thickets. And far off 
ran the dark line of forest, inhabited by wolves which would 
speedily become fiercer. In the forest far away stood my 
little cabin with its dead man keeping guard. It would be 
long before I should see it, if I ever did. Without snowshoes, 
it would be impossible to cross the forest now; without food, 
we could live only a short time longer on the ship. And 
then I made the discovery that our stove fire was being main- 
tained by schooner wood. That had accounted for her chop- 
ping and for her grave face as she carried in the wood. 
She had been breaking up a part of the ship each day 
to keep the fire going! 



160 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

' * The responsibilities upon me made me forget my sorrows, 
the death of ole Pierre, the lost time for trapping, the pinch 
of hunger. I made a makeshift pair of skees from two 
plankings of the schooner, and journeyed daily to some 
thicket by the shore wherein I had set my snares, and we 
lived on rabbit stew. With much labor I cut a hole in the 
ice, through which, with much patience, she fished. But days 
went by when it was too stormy either to hunt or to fish, 
and we sat huddled about the stove in which we burned as 
little wood as we could to keep from freezing. 

"During such times we talked, but not of the future, 
only of the past. She told me how they, she and her brother, 
had set out on a rumor of gold in the Laurentians; how 
the crew had deserted in a body with most of the stores; 
how she and her brother had been unable to man the ship 
sufficiently to keep it from this disaster. A dozen times she 
described the scene where he had said farewell to her on 
the morning of the day he had found me. A hundred times 
she asked me to tell her of our meeting; and a thousand, 
I may well say, she wondered how soon he would return. 

"Every evening she had me hang the lantern to the mast 
to guide him back. I could not prevent it, except by telling 
of his death, and that I could not do. I feared that the 
news, coupled with our desperate situation, would end her 
life. As it was, she was far too weak to travel now, even 
if I had had the snow-shoes for her. 

"Thus passed the first days. Then I saw that something 
must be done or else we should soon have burned up the 
house that sheltered us, deck, mast, and hull, before Christ- 
mas. Even then we were beginning on the walls of the 
schooner, since she would not let me chop down the mast. 

" 'There will be no place to hang the lantern if you de- 
stroy that ! ' she cried, when she had rushed out on deck 
one morning, to find me half-way through the strong oak. 

" 'Your brother will not travel by night,' I said. 

" 'How do you know?' she asked, a new harshness in her 
tired voice ; ' you, who will tell me so little about my brother ! ' 



PEIJNIEE TELLS A STORY 161 

"This was an unkind reproach, for I had indeed stretched 
the facts too much already in order to comfort her. 

" 'We cannot freeze,' I replied. 'You would not want him 
to arrive and find us dead. I have measured out the fuel 
and know it is unwise not to begin on these unnecessary parts 
of the ship first.' 

" 'Do you call my signal-mast unnecessary?' she called, 
her two thin hands beating upon the wood. 'You are cruel. 
You would keep my brother from me.' 

"From that morning there began a sullenness between us, 
which was nourished by too little food, and by being shut 
up in that bit of a schooner cabin too long together. For re- 
lief's sake, when I was not off snaring rabbits or looking 
for some stray up-river seal with my revolver in my hand, 
I began building an igloo, a hut of snow you know, not far 
from the ship. I thought that the time must be prepared 
for when we should have chopped up our shelter, and have 
pushed our home piecemeal into that devouring stove. 

"She made no comment on my preparations. In fact, we 
did not talk now, except to say the most necessary things. I 
was not sorry, for it relieved me from telling over and over 
that impossible story of her brother's return. I was con- 
vinced now that he had died, and my heart grieved for her 
final discovery of the news. But the saddest thing was to see 
the hunger for him grow daily stronger on her face. And 
it was pitiful, too, to watch her light the lantern with hands 
weak enough to tremble, to attach it to the signal-rope, and 
pull it to the masthead. She would never let me assist her 
in this act. 

" 'To-morrow we must move,' I said one night. 'I have 
completed the igloo. It will economize our fuel. ' 

' ' She nodded, weakly, as if she cared little what happened 
on the morrow. 

' ' ' And unless we catch a seal, we must save oil, ' I added. 
The waste of burning a lantern to attract a dead man's 
notice had got upon my nerves. 'Please do not light it 
to-night, else we will go into the new year dark,' 



162 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

*' *I shall not give up my brother!' she cried, with all her 
strength, 'for he will not give up me. But why does he 
not come? Why does he not come?' 

"It was heart- wringing to see her — to know what was in 
store. But it would have been less kind of me to let this 
deception go on. 

" 'He will never come,' I said, as softly as I could; 'there 
is no use in the light. Let us save oil. ' 

"Her weary, searching eyes questioned my face for the 
first time in days, and then she struck a match and applied 
it to the wick. 

" ' He will come, ' she said calmly, ' for God will guide him, 
and I am helping God.' She went out into the dusk, and I 
heard the futile lantern being pulled up to the masthead. 
I could not bear to interfere. 

"So, since save fuel we must, I began practising deceit 
by stealing out the next evening, lowering the signal and 
extinguishing it, then hoisting the black lantern into place. 
But she guessed ; and on the second night, as I had my hand 
upon the rope to lower it, she grasped my arm, her eyes 
flashing, her weak voice vibrant like the storm-wind. 

" 'Do you dare?' she said; 'do you dare betray me? You 
do not vmnt my brother.' And with fury she grasped the 
rope and jerked it from my hand. A sudden anger filled me. 

** 'Unreasonable woman,' I cried, 'we must have the mast 
for firewood; we must have the oil for light in the igloo! 
Let me alone.' 

* * ' Let me alone ! ' she screamed, struggling for the rope. 

"It must have been insecurely fastened. At any rate, we 
had not been contending many seconds in the darkness for 
the control of the light above our heads when we heard a 
rattle and saw it coming down upon us. I pushed her away 
just in time. The lantern struck some metal, burst, and the 
spattering oil caught fire in the swiftness of a thought. 

' ' For the first moment we were dumb ; in the second, hor- 
ror-struck. As a serpent darts its tongue, rills of oil spread 
down the plank-seams of the deck; and from each rill, flame 
leaped and ran about the ship. With a wild shriek, the 



PEtJNIEE TELLS A STOEY 163 

woman began to carry snow from a drift on the prow and 
sprinkle it on the spreading conflagration. She might as 
well have tried to extinguish it with her tears. In two min- 
utes, yellow tongues were running up the mast — that mast 
I had hoped would warm our igloo for a fortnight. In 
three, there was no hope of a splinter of the cold-dried 
boat remaining. I made one plunge into the cabin and 
grabbed an arm-load of clothes and food, and ran with 
them to the igloo. But when I had returned, there was no 
chance for a second try. The cabin was a furnace of eager 
flame. 

"The woman, the weeping cause of this, and I were beaten 
back by the heat, and at the opening of our only refuge 
now, the hut of snow, we stood and watched the swift de- 
struction of the schooner's hulk. About us, the night's dark- 
ness was driven to its dusky horizons. Overhead, th^e zenith 
was lit by the up-roaring pillar of fire which had so lately 
been a mast, a deck, a ship. We looked in silence, while 
the tower of flame rushed into the sky, like a signal to the 
wilderness. But a signal of what? Two houseless indi- 
viduals, robbed of their store of food, with no means of 
moving, and nowhere to move." 

Prunier paused, and Essex Lad drew a long breath. It 
was his first for minutes. 

"So that was your pillar of fire?" I said, "It seems to 
me more like one of Satan's than the Lord's." 

Prunier made an expressive gesture with his pipe. "Le 
bon Dieu does all things for the best," he said reverently. 
'"Alors. We stood there watching, the heat reaching us, 
and even eating maliciously into the white walls of our 
last hiding-place. But that did not go on long, for the 
ship was pouring its soul too lavishly into that hot pyre to 
last. 

" 'Quick,' I said to my fellow-outcast, 'drink in all the 
heat you can, for this is the end.' 

" 'And it is my fault!' she said; 'can you forgive me?' 

" 'Can youf I asked. 'We must be brave now. Let us 
warm ourselves while there are coals to warm us. Let us 



164 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

warm our wits and think, for before day dawns we must 
have a plan.' 

" 'It is too hard,' she said hopelessly. 

*' 'Trust God for one night more. Perhaps I can make 
a sledge and pull you to my cabin. There is food there.' 

" 'You are too weak,' she said. And I knew that she 
was right. 

' ' As the pillar of fire died down until it was a mere bright 
spiral of gilded smoke, and after the sides of the schooner 
had burned to the water-line, leaving great benches of black- 
ened ice about, we drew nearer and nearer to the lessening 
warmth. Darkness and cold and the northern silence shut 
us in. 

' ' We spoke in whispers, but hope died in me with the fad- 
ing fire. What chance for escape was there with a half- 
starved woman across a great snow-plain; and then through 
forests deep with the first snows and roamed by wolves, whose 
savageries I had tasted? 

"Luckily there was no wind. Smaller and smaller was 
the circle of light, weaker and weaker the heat. And tireder 
and more tired grew our heads that could see no light of 
safety ahead. 

"I think, sitting close together there, we dozed. Cer- 
tainly not for long, however, because the pillar of fire, 
though now a mere thread, was still pointing a finger into 
le hon Dieu's heaven, when I heard a crunch, crunch! 

" 'Wolves!' I said to myself, coming to my senses with 
a jerk. I felt for a revolver, but the only one had been 
left in the cabin. 

" 'Dear Lord,' I prayed, 'spare us this.' 

"But the crunch came nearer, nearer, like the soft foot- 
falls of many beasts, yet not quite like them either. I 
grasped a black-charred spar; ran it into a heap of red ashes 
to make it as deadly a weapon as possible. A little flame 
sprang from the pile, and in its light I went to grapple 
with this new danger. 

"The woman had heard, and, with a little scream, sprang 




'You made a fine signal" 



PRUNIER TELLS A STORY 165 

to her feet and quickly came up behind me, put her hand 
upon me, and cried: 'He has come! It is my brother who 
has come!' 

"And, as in the Bible, where Monsieur Moses spoke to 
the rock and the water gushed from it, so the woman cried 
into the dark and an answering voice sprang from it — a 
voice as from the dead. 

"I stood trembling, too weak to move. 

" 'You made a fine signal,' the voice said. 'Thank God 
for it!' 

" 'Yes, thank le ion Dieu, for it was His pillar of fire,' I 
said. 'Who are you?' 

" 'The rescued come to rescue,' he replied; 'her brother.' 

"His sister had sunk upon the snow. As he bent to pick 
her up, I saw the extra pairs of snow-shoes on his back, 
I noticed my toboggan that he was pulling, and the stores 
of food upon it. 

" 'You are strong again,' I said, wishing to pinch him 
to see whether he was he, or a trick of some werewolf who 
was deceiving me. 

" 'Thanks to your food,' he said. 

" 'But you have been long coming, brother,' said she, 
weakly. 'Why so long?' 

" 'All the bays are much alike,' he explained; 'and when 
the Smoky Pool was frozen, I lost my only clue. I was 
getting always farther away on my hunt, when the Lord 
turned and led me here by His pillar of fire.' 

"And the three of us, standing there in the dark of 
earliest dawn beneath the Great Bear, we keep still and say 
three — four prayers from ourselves to that same Jehovah who 
had guided Monsieur Moses, for the making of us safe." 

Prunier ceased abruptly and knocked out his pipe upon 
the hearth-side, then gazed reminiscently out into the fall- 
ing snow. 

I was busy with the picture in my brain of that blackened 
hulk, the frail woman and her almost helpless companion 



166 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

standing there in the midst of that gray waste of coming 
dawn. But the Lad's mind had already gone scouting on 
before. 

"And were you made safe, Prunier?" he asked. 

"Oh, certainement I " said the guide, almost drolly. 
''Voyez, I am here." 

"Then tell us — " commanded the insatiable youth. 

''Mads, cette une longue histoire," was all we heard. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What means does the author employ to lead naturally into the 

story of romantic adventure? 

2. What is the advantage of introducing two ordinary people in 

the very beginning of the story? 

3. What is the character of Prunier? 

4. How do Pmnier's peculiar characteristics aid the story? 

5. How does the author indicate Prunier's way of speaking? 

6. Why is the entire story not told in dialect? 

7. How does the author present the setting of the story? 

8. What part does the dog play in the story? 

9. What part does superstition play? 

10. Point out the three or four most exciting parts of the story. 

11. Explain how the characters are saved from threatening dangers. 

12. In what respects is the story a narrative of contest? 

13. Why is the narrative divided into two sections? 

14. Why are the two ordinary people mentioned throughout the 

story ? 

15. What part does religious faith play? 

16. In what respects is the second part of the story more intense 

than the first part? 

17. What is the character of the sister? 

18. What is the character of the brother? 

19. How does misfortune turn into blessing? 

20. How is the climax made emphatic? 

21. What did Prunier omit? 

22. Point out the most romantic episodes in the story. 

23. Point out the most realistic touches in the story. 

24. What noble qualities does the stoi-y emphasize? 
^5. How does the story affect the reader? 



PRUNIER TELLS A STORY 167 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Prunier's Return 11. Prunier's First Moose 

2. The Brother's Adventures 12. Why Prunier Lived in the 

3. The Stoi-y of the Shipwreck North 

4. The Mutiny of the Crew 13. The Sister's Return to Civ- 

5. Prunier's Boyhood ilization 

6. How Prunier Obtained Pierre 14. In Prunier's Hut 

7. Prunier's Longest Journey 15, The Strange Visitor 

8. Why Prunier Was Supersti- 16. The End of the Wolves 

tious 17. Prunier Tells Another Story 

9. The Rescue of Pierre 18. The Sister Tells a Story 
10, How Prunier Lost a Com- 19. The Fate of the Deserters 

panion 20. Prunier's Last Day 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

In the introduction of your romance use familiar scenes, events or 
characters that will lead naturally to a narrative of startling events. 
Say enough to indicate the setting of your story and to make it a 
vital factor in producing effect but do not write any long-drawn 
descriptions or explanations. Let your characters tell the story 
and present its setting. 

Make all the action hinge on worthy effort, and contribute to 
awakening respect for the characters. Tell a series of most unusual 
events. In telling every incident make full use of suspense and of 
climax. Tell the incidents in such a way that one will lead naturally 
to another. 

Your story will produce the most startling effect if you show 
your hero apparently defeated but able, at the last moment, to find 
a means of escape from danger. 

Keep your story true to human nature, and to the best ideals of 
human nature. 



THE DIDACTIC ESSAY 
THE AMERICAN BOY 

By THEODOEE EOOSEVELT 

(1858-1919). Twenty-sixth President of the United States. 
One of the most vigorous, courageous and 'picturesque figures 
in the public life of his day. Soon after his graduation from 
Harvard, and from Columbia Law School he entered public 
life, and gave invaluable service in many positions, becoming 
President in 1901, and again in 1904. His work as an organizer 
of the "Rough Eiders," his skill in horsemanship, his courage 
as an explorer and hunter, and his staunch patriotism and 
high ideals all made him both interesting and beloved. His work 
as an author is alone sufficient to make him great. Among his 
many books are The Winning of the West; The Strenuous 
Life; African Game Trails; True Americanism. 

The American Boy is a didactic essay, — an essay that expresses the 
writer's individuality and opinions and at the same time conveys 
instruction in the form of inspiration. Such an essay approaches the 
oration and the treatise. It differs from the oration in being less 
strongly didactic, and from the treatise in being less formal and 
comprehensive. 

Mr. Eoosevelt's personality is particularly evident in The American 
Boy. In every paragraph the reader feels the virile strength, the 
masterful force, the firm-set manhood, the broad-minded attitude toward 
all things that are good, and the intense hatred of cowardice and evil 
that always characterized Mr. Eoosevelt. The writer is not so much 
telling a boy what to do as he is telling what sort of boy he admires. 

The force of such an essay is great. No one, boy or man, can read 
The American Boy without being the better for it, without himself 
admiring manliness, the right balance between athletics and study, and 
the ideals of courage and fair -play. 

Of course, what we have a right to expect of the American 
boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man. 
Now, the chances are strong that he won't be much of a man 
unless he is a good deal of a boy. He must not be a coward 
or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig. He must work 

168 



THE AMEEICAN BOY 169 

hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean- 
lived, and able to hold his own under all circumstances and 
against all comers. It is only on these conditions that he 
will grow into the kind of American man of whom America 
can be really proud. 

There are always in life countless tendencies for good 
and for evil, and each succeeding generation sees some of 
these tendencies strengthened and some weakened ; nor is it by 
any means always, alas! that the tendencies for evil are 
weakened and those for good strengthened. But during the 
last few decades there certainly have been some notable 
changes for good in boy life. The great growth in the love 
of athletic sports, for instance, while fraught with danger if 
it becomes one-sided and unhealthy, has beyond all question 
had an excellent effect in in-reared manliness. Forty or 
fifty years ago the writer on American morals was sure to 
deplore the effeminacy and luxury of young Americans who 
were born of rich parents. The boy who was well off then, 
especially in the big Eastern cities, lived too luxuriously, 
took to billiards as his chief innocent recreation, and felt 
small shame in his inability to take part in rough pastimes 
and field sports. Nowadays, whatever other faults the son 
of rich parents may tend to develop, he is at least forced 
by the opinion of all his associates of his own age to bear 
himself well in manly exercises and to develop his body 
— and therefore, to a certain extent, his character — in the 
rough sports which call for pluck, endurance, and physical 
address. 

Of course, boys who live under such fortunate conditions 
that they have to do either a good deal of outdoor work 
or a good deal of what might be called natural outdoor 
play, do not need this athletic development. In the Civil 
"War the soldiers who came from the prairie and the back- 
woods and the rugged farms where stumps still dotted the 
clearings, and who had learned to ride in their infancy, 
to shoot as soon as they could handle a rifle, and to camp 
out whenever they got the chance, were better fitted for 
military work than any set of mere school or college athletes 



170 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

could possibly be. Moreover, to mis-estimate athletics is 
equally bad whether their importance is ma^ified or min- 
imized. The Greeks were famous athletes, and as long as 
their athletic training had a normal place in their lives, it 
was a good thing. But it was a very bad thing when they 
kept up their athletic games while letting the stern qualities 
of soldiership and statesmanship sink into disuse. Some of 
the boys who read this paper will certainly sometime read 
the famous letters of the younger Pliny, a Roman who 
wrote, with what seems to us a curiously modern touch, in 
the first century of the present era. His correspondence 
with the Emperor Trajan is particularly interesting; and 
not the least noteworthy thing in it is the tone of contempt 
with which he speaks of the Greek athletic sports, treating 
them as the diversions of an unwarlike people which it 
was safe to encourage in order to keep the Greeks from turn- 
ing into anything formidable. So at one time the Persian 
kings had to forbid polo, because soldiers neglected their 
proper duties for the fascinations of the game. To-day, 
some good critics have asserted that the reverses suffered 
by the British at the hands of the Boers in South Africa 
are in part due to the fact that the English officers and 
soldiers have carried to an unhealthy extreme the sports 
and pastimes which would be healthy if indulged in with 
moderation, and have neglected to learn as they should the 
business of their profession. A soldier needs to know how 
to shoot and take cover and shift for himself — not to box 
or play football. There is, of course, always the risk of 
thus mistaking means for ends. English fox-hunting is a 
first-class sport; but one of the most absurd things in real 
life is to note the bated breath with which certain excellent 
Englishmen, otherwise of quite healthy minds, speak of 
this admirable but not over-important pastime. They tend 
to make it almost as much of a fetish as, in the last cen- 
tury, the French and German nobles made the chase of the 
stag, when they carried hunting and game-preserving to a 
point which was ruinous to the national life. Fox-hunt- 
ing is very good as a pastime, but it is about as poor a 



THE AMERICAN BOY 171 

business as can be followed by any man of intelligence. Cer- 
tain writers about it are fond of quoting the anecdote 
of a fox-hunter who, in the days of the English Civil War, 
was discovered pursuing his favorite sport just before a 
great battle between the Cavaliers and the Puritans, and 
right between their lines as they came together. These 
writers apparently consider it a merit in this man that when 
his country was in a death-grapple, instead of taking arms 
and hurrying to the defense of the cause he believed right, 
he should placidly have gone about his usual sports. Of 
course, in reality the chief serious use of fox-hunting is 
to encourage manliness and vigor, and keep a man so that 
in time of need he can show himself fit to take part in work 
or strife for his native land. When a man so far confuses 
ends and means as to think that fox-hunting, or polo, or 
football, or whatever else the sport may be, is to be itself 
taken as the end, instead of as the mere means of prepara- 
tion to do work that counts when the time arises, when the 
occasion calls — why, that man had better abandon sport 
altogether. 

No boy can afford to neglect his work, and with a boy 
work, as a rule, means study. Of course, there are oc- 
casionally brilliant successes in life where the man has been 
worthless as a student when a boy. To take these exceptions 
as examples would be as unsafe as it would be to advocate 
blindness because some blind men have won undying honor 
by triumphing over their physical infirmity and accomplish- 
ing great results in the world. I am no advocate of senseless 
and excessive cramming in studies, but a boy should work, 
and should work hard, at his lessons — in the first place, for 
the sake of what he will learn, and in the next place, for 
the sake of the effect upon his own character of resolutely 
settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indiffer- 
ence in studying, are almost certain to mean inability to get 
on in other walks of life. Of course, as a boy grows older 
it is a good thing if he can shape his studies in the direction 
toward which he has a natural bent; but whether he can 
do this or not, he must put his whole heart into them. I 



172 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

do not believe in mischief-doing in school hours, or in the 
kind of animal spirits that results in making bad scholars; 
and I believe that those boys who take part in rough, hard 
play outside of school will not find any need for horse- 
play in school. While they study they should study just 
as hard as they play football in a match game. It is wise 
to obey the homely old adage, "Work while you work; play 
while you play." 

A boy needs both physical and moral courage. Neither 
can take the place of the other. When boys become men 
they will find out that there are some soldiers very brave 
in the field who have proved timid and worthless as poli- 
ticians, and some politicians who show an entire readiness 
to take chances and assume responsibilities in civil affairs, 
but who lack the fighting edge when opposed to physical 
danger. In each case, with soldiers and politicians alike, 
there is but half a virtue. The possession of the courage 
of the soldier does not excuse the lack of courage in the 
statesman, and even less does the possession of the courage 
of the statesman excuse shrinking on the field of battle. 
Now, this is all just as true of boys. A coward who will 
take a blow without returning it is a contemptible creature; 
but, after all, he is hardly as contemptible as the boy who 
dares not stand up for what he deems right against the 
sneers of his companions who are themselves wrong. Ridicule 
is one of the favorite weapons of wickedness, and it is some- 
times incomprehensible how good and brave boys will be 
influenced for evil by the jeers of associates who have no 
one quality that calls for respect, but who affect to laugh at 
the very traits which ought to be peculiarly the cause for 
pride. 

There is no need to be a prig. There is no need for a boy 
to preach about his own good conduct and virtue. If 
he does he will make himself offensive and ridiculous. But 
there is urgent need that he should practise decency; that 
he should be clean and straight, honest and truthful, gentle 
and tender, as well as brave. If he can once get to a proper 
understanding of things, he will have a far more hearty 



THE AMEEICAN BOY 173 

contempt for the boy who has begun a course of feeble dis- 
sipation, or who is untruthful, or mean, or dishonest, or 
cruel, than this boy and his fellows can possibly, in re- 
turn, feel for him. The very fact that the boy should be 
manly and able to hold his own, that he should be ashamed 
to submit to bullying without instant retaliation, should, in 
return, make him abhor any form of bullying, cruelty, or 
brutality. 

There are two delightful books, Thomas Hughes's "Tom 
Brown at Rugby," and Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy," 
which I hope every boy still reads; and I think American 
boys will always feel more in sympathy with Aldrich's story, 
because there is in it none of the fagging, and the bullying 
which goes with fagging, the account of which, and the ac- 
ceptance of which, always puzzle an American admirer of 
Tom Brown. 

There is the same contrast between two stories of Kipling's. 
One, called ' ' Captains Courageous, ' ' describes in the liveliest 
way just what a boy should be and do. The hero is painted 
in the beginning as the spoiled, over-indulged child of wealthy 
parents, of a type which we do sometimes unfortunately 
see, and than which there exist few things more objectionable 
on the face of the broad earth. This boy is afterward thrown 
on his own resources, amid wholesome surroundings, and 
is forced to work hard among boys and men who are real 
boys and real men doing real work. The effect is invaluable. 
On the other hand, if one wishes to find types of boys to 
be avoided with utter dislike, one will find them in another 
story by Kipling, called ' ' Stalky & Co., ' ' a story which ought 
never to have been written, for there is hardly a single 
form of meanness which it does not seem to extol, or of school 
mismanagement which it does not seem to applaud. Bullies 
do not make brave men; and boys or men of foul life can- 
not become good citizens, good Americans, until they change ; 
and even after the change scars will be left on their souls. 

The boy can best become a good man by being a good 
boy — not a goody-goody boy, but just a plain good boy. I 
do not mean that he must love only the negative virtues; 



174 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

I mean he must love the positive virtues also. "Good," in 
the largest sense, should include whatever is fine, straight- 
forward, clean, brave, and manly. The best boys I know — 
the best men I know — are good at their studies or their 
business, fearless and stalwart, hated and feared by all that 
is wicked and depraved, incapable of submitting to wrong- 
doing, and equally incapable of being aught but tender to 
the weak and helpless. A healthy-minded boy should feel 
hearty contempt for the coward, and even more hearty in- 
dignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or 
tortures animals. One prime reason for abhorring cowards 
is because every good boy should have it in him to thrash 
the objectionable boy as the need arises. 

Of course, the effect that a thoroughly manly, thoroughly 
straight and upright boy can have upon the companions 
of his own age, and upon those who are younger, is in- 
calculable. If he is not thoroughly manly, then they will 
not respect him, and his good qualities will count for but 
little; while, of course, if he is mean, cruel, or wicked, then 
his physical strength and force of mind merely make him 
so much the more objectionable a member of society. He 
cannot do good work if he is not strong, and does not try 
with his whole heart and soul to count in any contest; and 
his strength will be a curse to himself and to every one else 
if he does not have thorough command over himself and 
over his own evil passions, and if he does not use his strength 
on the side of decency, justice, and fair dealing. 

In short, in life, as in a football game, the principle 
to follow is: 

Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit 
the line hard! 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. In a single sentence express Mr. Roosevelt's principal thought. 

2. Point out the subordinate thoughts that aid the development of 

the essay. 

3. Point out examples of antithesis. 



THE AMERICAN BOY 175 

4. Show how Mr. Roosevelt gains power by the use of short and 

common words. 

5. Describe the sort of boy whom Mr. Roosevelt does not admire. 

6. Describe the sort of boy whom Mr. Roosevelt does admire, 

7. What is Mr. Roosevelt's opinion of the value of athletics? 

8. What is Mr. Roosevelt's opinion of the relative position of 

study and of athletics? 

9. What sort of books for boys does Mr. Roosevelt admire? 
10. What is the effect of the last sentence? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. 


The American Girl 


11. 


Fearlessness 


2. 


The American Man 


12. 


Physical Strength 


3. 


The American Woman 


13. 


Fair Play 


4. 


The Good Athlete 


14. 


Energy 


5. 


The Good Student 


15. 


The Under Dog 


6. 


The True Aristocrat 


16. 


American Ideals 


7. 


The Truly Rich 


17. 


Success in Life 


8. 


The Ideal of Work 


18. 


Skill 


9. 


Good Reading 


19. 


A Good Time 


LO. 


Good Citizenship 


20. 


Manliness 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Your subject must be one on which you have strong convictions 
as the result of personal experience. In a certain sense, your 
essay must represent your own life. Try to hold forward no ideals 
that you yourself do not uphold. 

Formulate a strong central thought, and two or three subordinate 
and supporting thoughts. When you have done this develop your 
essay step by step, giving examples drawn from history or from 
well-known facts. Mention books that set forward the ideals you 
wish to emphasize. 

Write in a strong, forceful, almost commanding style, but do not 
say "Thus and so shalt thou do." Speak in strong terms of the 
principles that you admire but leave your readers to draw value 
from the enthusiasm of your words rather than information from 
directions given. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 

By HILDEGAEDE HAWTHOENE 

Daughter of Julian Hawthorne, and grand-daughter of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne. She writes with rare charm and literary 
power, and contributes regularly to many periodicals. Among 
her books are: A Country Interlude; The Lure of the Garden; 
Old Seaport Towns of New England; Girls in Booklan'd. 

The article that follows is much like an oration or an editorial article 
in that it is directed to ' ' you ' ' rather than expressive of " I ". The 
true essay is not concerned with ' ' you " : it is concerned only with " I ". 

Both the oration and the editorial article have much in common with the 
essay type; for both turn aside frequently into the happy fields of 
meditation. 

The first three paragraphs of The Spirit of Adventure are purely 
personal in nature and therefore wholly in keeping with the spirit of 
the essay form. Furthermore, those paragraphs, — so reminiscent of the 
fancy of the writer's famous grandfather, Nathaniel Hawthorne, — rep- 
resent poetic prose. Throughout the article the personal note mingles 
with the directing voice of the editorial article. Indeed, it would be 
easy to drop from The Spirit of Adventure everything that is not 
personal, and thereby to leave pure essay. 

As it stands, The Spirit of Adventure is a didactic essay, brave and 
strong in its thought, and poetic in its style. 

Wind has always seemed wonderful and beautiful to me. 

Invisible as it is, it pervades the whole world. It has the 
very quality of life. Without wind, how dead and still the 
world would be! In the autumn, wind shakes the leaves 
free and sends them flying, gold and red. It takes the seeds 
of many plants and sows them over the land. It blows away 
mists and sets clouds to voyaging, brings rain and fair 
weather the year round, builds up snow in fantastic palaces, 
rolls the waves high, murmurs a fairy music in the pines and 
shouts aloud in storms. Wind is the great adventurer of 
nature. Sometimes it is so fierce and terrible that nothing 
can stand before it — Chouses are torn to shreds, trees are 

176 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTUEE 177 

felled, ruin follows where it goes. At other times, it comes 
marching wet and salt from the sea, or dry and keen from 
the mountains on hot summer days, bringing ease and rest 
and health. Keen as a knife, it whips over the frozen ground 
in winter and screams wildly round the farm-house, taps the 
panes with ghost fingers, and whistles like a sprite in the 
chimney. It brings sails from land to land, turns windmills 
in quaint foreign places, and sets the flags of all the coun- 
tries of the world fluttering on their high staffs. 

Wind is nature's spirit of adventure, keeping her world 
vigorous, clean, and alive. 

For us, too, the spirit of adventure is the fine wind of 
life, and if we have it not, or lose it, either as individual 
or nation, then we begin to die, our force and freshness 
depart, we stop in our tracks, and joy vanishes. For joy 
is a thing of movement and energy, of striving forward, 
a thing of hope as well as fruition. You must be thor- 
oughly alive to be truly joyful, and all the great things 
accomplished by men and nations have been accomplished 
by vigorous and active souls, not content to sit still and 
hold the past, but eager to press on and to try undiscovered 
futures. 

If ever a nation was founded on, and built up by, the 
spirit of adventure, that nation is our own. The very find- 
ing of it was the result of a splendid upspring of that spirit. 
From then on through centuries it was only men in whom 
the spirit of adventure was strong as life itself who reached 
our shores. Great adventurers, on they came, borne as they 
should be, by wind itself! Gallant figures, grim figures, 
moved by all sorts of lures and impulses, yet one and all 
stirred and led by the call of adventure, that cares nothing 
for ease of body or safety, for old, tried rules and set ways 
and trodden paths, but passionately for freedom and effort, 
for what is strange and dangerous and thrilling, for tasks 
that call on brain and body for quick, new decisions and 
acts. 

The spirit of adventure did not die with the settling of 
our shores. Following the sea adventures came those of 



178 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

the land, the pioneers, who went forward undismayed by the 
perils and obstacles that appeared quite as insurmountable 
as did the uncharted seas to Columbus's men. Think of the 
days, when next you ride across our great continent in 
the comfort of a Pullman, when it took five months and more 
to make the same journey with ox-teams. Think how day 
followed day for those travelers across the Great Plains in 
a sort of changeless spell, where they topped long slow rise 
after long slow rise only to see the seemingly endless pan- 
orama stretch on before them. Think how they passed the 
ghastly signs of murdered convoys gone before, and yet 
pressed on. Think how they settled here and there in new 
strange places where never the foot of men like themselves 
had been set before, and proceeded to build homes and till 
the land, rifle in hand ; think how their wives reared their 
children and kept their homes where never a white child 
or a Christian home had been before. 

Where should we be to-day but for such men and women — 
if this wind of the spirit had never blown through men's 
hearts and fired them on to follow its call, as the wind blows 
a flame? 

Wherever you look here in America you can see the signs 
and traces of this wonderful spirit. In old towns, like 
Provincetown or Gloucester,^ you still hear tales of the whale- 
fisheries, and still see boats fare out to catch cod and mackerel 
on the wild and dangerous Banks. But in the past, the fishers 
sailed away for a year or two, round the globe itself, after 
their game! You see the spirit's tracks along the barren 
banks of the Sacramento,^ where the gold-seekers fronted the 
wilderness after treasure, and in Alaska it walks incarnate. 
It is hewing its way in forests and digging it in mines; it 
is building bridges and plants in the deserts and the moun- 
tains. Out it goes to the islands of the Pacific, and in 
Africa it finds a land after its heart. 

* Provincetown or Gloucester. Famous sea-coast towns on the coast 
of Massachusetts. 

* Sacramento. A river of California, near which gold was discovered 
in 1848. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 179 

How much of this spirit lives in you? 

I tell you, when I hear a girl or a boy say: "This place 
is good enough for me. I can get a good job round the cor- 
ner ! I know all the folks in town ; and I don 't see any reason 
for bothering about how they live in other places or what 
they do away from here ' ' ; when I hear that sort of talk from 
young people, my heart sinks a bit. 

For such boys and girls there is no golden call of adventure, 
no lure of wonder by day and night, no desire to measure 
their strength against the world, no hope of something 
finer and more beautiful than what they have as yet known 
or seen. 

I like the boy or girl who sighs after a quest more diffi- 
cult than the trodden trail, who wants more of life than 
the assurance of a good job. I know very well that the home- 
keeping lad has a stout task to perform and a good life 
to live. But I know, too, that if the youth of a nation loses 
its love of adventure, if that wild and moving spirit passes 
from it, then the nation is close to losing its soul. It has 
about reached the limit of its power and growth. 

So much in our daily existence works against this noble 
spirit, disapproves it, fears it. People are always ready to 
prove that there is neither sense nor profit in it. Why 
should you sail with Drake ^ and Frobisher,* or march with 
Fremont ^ or track the forest with Boone,® when it is so 
much easier and safer and pays better to stay at home ? Why 
shouldn't you be content to do exactly like the people about 
you, and live the life that is already marked out for you 
to live? 

'Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596). A great English sailor and naval 
commander. He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the earth, 
and was one of the commanders in the fight with the Spanish Armada, 
1888. 

*Sir Martin Frobisher (1535-1594), The discoverer of Frobisher 
Bay; one of the leaders against the Spanish Armada. 

"John C. Fremont (1813-1890). An American general noted for hia 
explorations of the West. 

"Daniel Boone (1735-1820). An early American explorer, pioneer 
and Indian fighter. 



180 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

That is what most of us will do. But that is no reason 
why the glorious spirit of adventure should be denied and 
reviled. It is the great spirit of creation in our race. If 
it stirs in you, listen to it, be glad of it. 

A mere restless impulse to move about, the necessity to 
change your environment or else be bored, the dissatisfaction 
with your condition that leads to nothing but ill temper or 
melancholy, these are not part of the spirit of which I am 
speaking. You may develop the spirit of adventure with- 
out stirring from home, for it is not ruled by the body 
and its movements. Great and high adventure may be yours 
in the home where you now live, if you realize that home 
;as a part of the great world, as a link of the vast chain 
'Of life. Two boys can sit side by side on the same hearth- 
stone, and in one the spirit of adventure is living and 
■calling, in the other it is dead. To the first, life will be an 
opportunity and a beckoning. He will be ready to give 
himself for the better future ; he will be ready to strike hands 
with the fine thought and generous endeavor of the whole 
world, bringing to his own community the fruit of great 
things, caring little for the ease and comfort of his body, 
ibut much for the possibilities of a finer, truer realization 
lof man's eternal struggle toward a purer liberty and a 
nobler life. The spirit of adventure is a generous spirit, 
^kindling to great appeals. Of the two boys, sitting there 
together, the second may perhaps go round the world, but 
to him there will be no song and no wonder. He will not 
find adventure, because he has it not. The old phrase, "ad- 
ventures to the adventurous," is a true saying. The selfish 
and the small of soul know no adventures. 

As I think of America to-day, I say the spirit that found 
and built her must maintain her. There are great things 
to be done for America in the coming years, in your years. 
Her boundaries are fixed, but within those boundaries marvel- 
ous development is possible. Her government has found its 
form, but there is work for the true adventurer in seeing 
that the spirit of that government, in all its endless ramifica- 
tions and expressions, fulfils the intention of human liberty 



THE SPIBIT OF ADVENTURE 181 

and well-being that lie within that form. Her relations 
with the world ouside of herself are forming anew, and here 
too there is labor of the noblest. The lad who cares only 
for his own small job and his own small comforts, who dreads 
the rough contacts of life and the dangers of pioneering will 
not help America much. 

In the older days the Pilgrim Fathers cast aside every 
comfort of life to follow the call of liberty, coming to a 
wilderness so remote, that for us a voyage to some star 
would scarcely seem more distant or strange. None of 
us will be called upon to do so tremendous a thing as 
that act of theirs, so far as the conditions of existence go, 
since the telegraph and the aeroplane and turbine knit us 
close. But there are adventures quite as magnificent to be 
achieved. 

The spirit of adventure loves the unknown. And in the 
unknown we shall find all the wonders that are waiting for 
us. Our whole life is lived on the very border of unknown 
things, but only the adventurous spirit reaches out to these 
and makes them known, and widens the horizons for human- 
ity. The very essence of the spirit of adventure is in doing 
something no one has done before. Every highroad was 
once a trail, every trail had its trail-breaker, setting his foot 
where no man's foot had gone before through what new for- 
ests and over what far plains. 

It is good to ride at ease on the broad highway, with every 
turning marked and the rules all kept. But it is not the 
whole of life. The savor of lonely dawns, the call of an un- 
known voice, the need to establish new frontiers of spirit 
and action beyond any man has yet set, these are also part 
of life. Do not forego them. You are young and the world 
is before you. Be among those who perceive all its variety, its 
potentialities, who can see good in the new and unknown, 
and find joy in hazard and strength in effort. Do not be 
afraid of strange manners and customs, nor think a thing 
is wrong because it is different. 

Throw wide the great gates of adventure in your soul, 
young America! 



182 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Point out effects that have been gained by the use of figures of 

speech. 

2. What is the relation of the first three paragraphs to the remain- 

der of the essay? 

3. Point out the parts of The Spirit of Adventure that depart from 

the strict form of the essay. 

4. Indicate what may be omitted in order to make The Spirit of 

Adventure truly an essay. 

5. How many historical allusions are made in the essay? 

6. Explain the most important historical allusions. 

7. What does the writer mean by "the spirit of adventure"? 

8. What does she say is the importance of such a spirit? 

9. How can an ordinary person carry out the writer's wishes? 

10. How does the style of the essay strengthen the presentation of 
thought? 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. 


Love of Truth 


11. 


The Snow 


2. 


The Spirit of Fair Play 


12. 


Falling Leaves 


3. 


The Sense of Honor 


13. 


The Ocean 


4. 


Stick-to-it-iveness 


14. 


The Stoi-m 


5. 


Faithfulness 


15. 


Moonlight 


6. 


School Spirit 


16. 


The Voice of Thunder 


7. 


Loyalty 


17. 


Flowers 


8. 


The Scientific Spirit 


18. 


The Friendly Trees 


9. 


Work 


19. 


Country Brooks 



10. The Spirit of Helpfulness 20. Gentle Rain 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

If you wish to write two or three paragraphs of poetic prose in 
imitation of the first three paragraphs of The Spirit of Adventure 
choose one of the topics in the second column. Write, first of all, 
a sentence that will summarize your principal thought, a sentence 
that will correspond with the sentence that forms the third para- 
graph of Miss Hawthorne's essay. Then lead up to this sentence by 
writing a series of sentences full of fancy. Use figures of speech 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 183 

freely. Arrange your words, phrases or clauses so tkat you will 
produce both striking effects and also rhythm. 

If you wish to write in imitation of the entii'e essay choose one of 
the topics in the first column. Begin your work by writing a series 
of poetic paragi'aphs that will present the spirit of your essay. 
Continue to write in a somewhat poetic style, but make many definite 
allusions to history, literature or the facts of life. 

Throughout your work express your own personality as much as 
you can. End your essay by making some personal appeal but do 
not make your work too didactic. 



VANISHING NEW YORK 

By EOBEET and ELIZABETH SHACKLETON 

Eobert SJiacMeton (1860 — ) and his wife, Elisabeth Shackle- 
ton, have written much in collaboration. Among such works 
are: The Quest of the Colonial; Adventures in Home Making; 
The Charm of the Antique. Mr. Shackleton was at one time 
associate editor of The Saturday Evening Post. He is the 
author of many books, among which are Touring Great Britain; 
History of Harper's Magazine, and The Book of New York. 

Washington Irving 's Sketch Book tells of Irving 's delighted wander- 
ings around old London, and of his interest in streets and buildings that 
awoke memories of the past. Vanishing New York is an essay that 
corresponds closely with the essays written by Irving so many years ago. 
In this modern essay Eobert and Elizabeth Shackleton tell of their 
wanderings about old New York, of odd streets, curious buildings, and 
romantic and historic associations. The essay gives to New York an 
interest that makes it, in the eyes of the reader, as fascinating as 
Irving 's old London. 

The writers do more than tell the story of a walk about New York, 
and much more than merely name and describe the places they saw. By 
a skilful use of adjectives, and by an interested suggestiveness, they 
throw over the places they mention an atmosphere of charm. We feel 
that we are with them, enjoying and loving the curious old places that 
seem so destined to vanish forever. 

What is left of old New York that is quaint and charming? The 
New York of the eighties and earlier, of Henry James,* of Gramercy 
Park, Washington and Stuyvesant squares, quaint old houses on curious 
by-streets? The period of perhaps a more beautiful and certainly a 
more leisurely existence? All places of consequence and interest that 
remain to-day are herewith described. 

To one, vanishing New York means a little box garden up 
in the Bronx, glimpsed just as the train goes into the sub- 
way. To another, it is a fan-light on Horatio Street; an 
old cannon, planted muzzle downward at a curb-edge; a 
long-watched, ancient mile-stone ; a weU ; a water-tank bound 

* Henry James (1843-1916). An American novelist noted for strik- 
ingly analytical novels. His boyhood home was on Washington Square. 

184 



VANISHING NEW YORK 185 

up in a bank charter ; a Bowling Green sycamore ; an ailantus 
beside the twin French houses of crooked Commerce Street. 
And what a pang to find an old landmark gone ! To an- 
other it is the sad little iron arch of the gate of old St. John 's 
at the end of the once-while quaint St. John's Place, all 
that is now left of the beautiful pillared and paneled old 
church and its English-made wrought-iron fence. To many- 
it is the loss of the New York sky-line, one of the wonders 
of the world — lost, for it has vanished from sight. Now 
the sky-line is to be seen only from the water, and the city 
is no longer approached by water except by a few; but is 
entered under the rivers on each side, by tunnels down into 
which the human currents are plunged. A positive thrill, a 
morning-and-evening thrill that was almost a worship of 
the noble and the beautiful, used to sweep over the packed 
thousands on the ferry-boats as they gazed at the sky-line. 

It is extraordinary how swiftly New York destroys and 
rebuilds. There is the story of a distinguished visitor who, 
driven uptown on the forenoon of his arrival, was, on his 
departure in the late afternoon of the same day, driven 
downtown over the same route in order that he might see 
what changes had meanwhile taken place. The very first 
vessel built in New York — it was three hundred years ago — 
was named in the very spirit of prophecy, for it was called 
the Onrust {Restless). 

Yet it is astonishing how much of interest remains in this 
iconoclastic city, although almost everything remains under 
constant threat of destruction. Far over toward the North 
River is one of the threatened survivals. It is shabby, an- 
cient; indeed, it has been called the oldest building in New 
York, though nothing certain is known beyond 1767. But 
it is very old, and may easily date much further back. It 
is called the Clam Broth House, and is on Weehawken 
Street, which, closely paralleling "West Street, holds its single 
block of length north from Christopher, It is a lost and 
forgotten street, primitively cobblestoned with the worst pave- 
ment in New York, and it holds several lost and forlorn old 
houses — low-built houses, with great broad, sweeping roofs 



186 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

reaching almost to the ground, houses tremulous with age. 
Of these the one now called the Clam Broth House, low, 
squat, broad-roofed, is the oldest. In a sense the fronts are 
on West Street, but all original characteristics have there 
been bedizenedly lost, and the ancient aspect is on Wee- 
hawken Street. 

These were fishermen's houses in ancient days, waterside 
houses; for West Street is fiUed-in ground, and the broad 
expanse of shipping space out beyond the street is made 
land. When these houses were built, the North River reached 
their doors, and, so tradition has it, fishermen actually rowed 
their boats and drew their shad-seines beneath this Clam 
Broth House. 

Of a far different order of interest is a demure little 
church, neat and trim, on Hudson treet. It is built of brick, 
bright red, with long red wings stretching oddly away from 
the rear, with a low, squat tower of red, and in the midst 
of gray old houses that hover around in fading respectability. 
It is St. Luke's, is a century old, and with it is conected 
the most charming custom of New York. 

In 1792 a certain John Leake died, leaving a sum to Trinity 
Church for the giving forever, to "such poor as shall appear 
most deserving," as many "six-penny wheaten loaves" as the 
income would buy, and this sweet and simple dole has ever 
since been regularly administered, and it will go on through 
the centuries, like the ancient English charity at Winchester, 
where for eight hundred years bread and ale have been 
given. 

But there is one strictly New York feature about this 
already old Leake dole that differentiates it from the dole 
of Winchester, for it is still at the original wicket that the 
Winchester dole is given. There the custom was instituted, 
and there it has continued through all these centuries. But 
in New York the dole began at Trinity, but after something 
more than half a century, as population left the neighborhood 
of Trinity, the dole was transferred to St. John's, on Varick 
Street, once known as "St. John's in the Fields," and now, 
after more than another half-century, there has come still 



VANISHING NEW YORK 187 

another removal, and the dole is given at quaint old St. 
Luke's. Thus it has already had three homes, and one 
wonders how many it will have as the decades and the cen- 
turies move on. One pictures it peripatetically proceeding 
hither and thither as further changes come upon the city, 
the dole for the poor that never vanish. 

A short distance south from St. Luke's, on the opposite 
side of Hudson Street, is an open space that is a public play- 
ground and a public garden. It was a graveyard, but a few 
years ago the city decreed that it should vanish, with the 
exception of a monument put up to commemorate the de- 
votion of firemen who gave their lives for duty in a fire of 
the long ago. It was not the graveyard of St. Luke's, al- 
though near, but of farther away St. John's; and it is pleas- 
ant to remember that it was in walking to and fro among 
the now vanished graves and tombs that Edgar Allan Poe * 
composed his ' ' Raven. ' ' 

Cheerful in its atmosphere — but perhaps this is largely 
from its name — is short little Gay Street, leading from 
Waverley Place, just around the corner from Sixth Avenue. 
Immediately beyond this point — for much of the unexpected 
still remains in good old Greenwich Village— Waverley be- 
comes, by branching, a street with four sidewalks; for both 
branches hold the name of Waverley. It is hard for people 
of to-day to understand the power of literature in the early 
half of the last century, when Washington Irving ^ was 
among the most prominent citizens, and James Fenimore 
Cooper * was publicly honored, and admirers of the Waver- 
ley Novels made successful demand on the aldermen to 
change the name of Sixth Street, where it left Broadway, 
to Waverley Place, and to continue it beyond Sixth Avenue, 
discarding another name on the way, and at this forking- 

* Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). Perhaps the most widely known 
American poet and short story writer. The Eaven is the best-known 
poem by any American poet. Poe wrote the poem while he was living 
in New York City. 

"Washington Irving (1783-1859). The genial American essayist, 
biographer and historian. He spent much of his time in New York City. 

* James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). The first great American 
novelist, best known for his fg,moug " Leatherstocking Tales." 



188 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

point to do away with both Catharine and Elizabeth streets 
in order to give Waverley its four sidewalks. Could this be 
done in these later days with the names, say of Howells " 
or of Plopkinson Smith ! ^ Does any one ever propose to 
have an " " put before Henry Street ! ^ 

At the forking-point is a triangular building, archaic in 
aspect, and very quiet. It is a dispensary, and an ancient 
jest of the neighborhood is, when some stranger asks if it has 
patients, to reply, "It doesn't need 'em; it 's got money." 

Gay Street is miniature; its length isn't long and its 
width isn't wide. It is a street full of the very spirit of 
old Greenwich, or, rather, of the old Ninth Ward; for thus 
the old inhabitants love to designate the neighborhood, some 
through not knowing that it was originally Greenwich Vil- 
lage, and a greater number because they are not interested 
in the modern development, poetic, artistic, theatric, empiric, 
romantic, sociologic, but are proud of the honored record 
of the district as the most American ward of New York 
City. 

In an apartment overlooking a Gay Street corner there 
died last year a man who had rented there for thirty-four 
years. There loomed practical difficulties for the final exit, 
the solution involving window and fire-escape. But the land- 
lord, himself born there, said, "No; he has always gone in 
and out like a gentleman, and he shall still go out, for the 
last time, as a gentleman," thereupon he called in carpenter 
and mason to cut the wall. 

Then some old resident will tell you, pointing out house 
by house and name by name, where business men, small manu- 
facturers, politicians, and office-holders dwelt. And, fur- 
ther reminiscent, he will tell of how, when a boy, at dawn 
on each Fourth of July, he used to get out his toy cannon and 

■* William Dean Howells (1837-1920). A celebrated modern novelist, 
noted for his realistic pictures of life. 

"F. Hopkinson Smith (1838-1915). An American civil engineer, artist 
and short story writer. Colonel Carter of Cartersville is one of his best- 
known books. 

' O. Henry (William Sidney Porter) (1867-1910). A popular American 
short story writer, noted for originality of style and treatment. 



VANISHING NEW YOEK 189 

fire it from a cellar entrance (pointing to the entrance), 
and how one Fourth the street was suddenly one shattering 
crash, two young students from the old university across 
Washington Square having experimentally tossed to the pave- 
ment from their garret window a stick of what was then "a 
new explosive, dynamite." No sane and safe Fourths then! 

It is still remembered that some little houses at the far- 
ther end of Gay Street, on Christopher, were occupied by 
a little colony of hand-loom weavers from Scotland, who 
there looked out from these ' ' windows in Thrums. ' ' ^ 

Around two corners from this spot is a curiously pic- 
turesque little bit caused by the street changes of a century 
ago. It is Patchin Place, opening from Tenth Street op- 
posite Jefferson Market. The place is a cul-de-sac, with a 
double row of little three-story houses, each looking just like 
the other, of yellow-painted brick. Each house has a little 
area space, each front door is up two steps from its nar- 
row sidewalk. Each door is of a futuristic green. Each has 
its ailantus-tree, making the little nooked place a delightful 
bower. 

Immediately around the corner is the still more curious 
Milligan Place, a spot more like a bit of old London than 
any other in New York, It is a little nestled space, entered 
by a barely gate-wide opening from the busy Sixth Avenue 
sidewalk. Inside it expands a trifle, just sufficiently to 
permit the existence of four little houses, built close against 
one another. So narrowly does an edge of brick building 
come down beside the entrance that it is literally only the 
width of the end of the bricks. 

In an instant, going through the entrance that you might 
pass a thousand times without noticing, you are miles away, 
you are decades away, in a fragment of an old lost lane. 

Near by, where Sixth Avenue begins, there is still projec- 
tive from an old-time building the sign of the Golden Swan, 
a lone survival of long ago. And this is remindful of the 

' * ' Windows in Thrums ' '. The title of a novel by James Matthew 
Barrie (1860 ) is A Window in Thrums, Thrums being an imag- 
inary village in Scotland, inhabited principally by humble but devout 



190 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

cigar-store Indians. Only yesterday they were legion, now 
a vanished race. And the sidewalk clocks that added such 
interest to the streets, they, too, have gone, banished by 
city ordinance. 

The conjunction of Seventh Avenue and Greenwich Avenue 
and Eleventh Street makes a triangle, at the sharp point of 
which is a small, low, and ancient building, fittingly given 
over to that ancient and almost vanished trade, horseshoe- 
ing. A little brick building with outside wooden stair stands 
against and above it as the triangle widens, and then comes 
an ancient building a little taller still. And this odd con- 
glomerate building was all, so you will be told, built in the 
good old days for animal houses for one of the earliest 
menageries! Next came a period of stage-coaches, with 
horses housed here. And, as often in New York, a great 
shabbiness accompanies the old. Within the triangle, inside 
of a tall wooden fence, are several ancient ailantus trees, re- 
mindful that long ago New York knew this locality as — name 
full of pleasant implications — "Ailanthus Gardens." And 
every spring Ailanthus Gardens, oblivious to forgetfulness 
and shabbiness, still bourgeons green and gay. 

An old man, a ghost-of-the-past old man, approached, and, 
seeing that we were interested, said abruptly, unexpectedly, 
"That 's Bank Street over there, where the banks and the 
bankers came," thus taking the mind far back to the time of 
a yellow-fever flight from what was then the distant city 
to what was in reality Greenwich. 

Only a block from here, on Seventh Avenue, is a highly 
picturesque survival, a long block of three-story dwellings 
all so uniformly balconied, from first floor to roof-line, 
across the entire fronts, that you see nothing but balconies, 
with their three stories fronted with eyelet-pattern 
balustrades. In front of all the houses is an open grassy 
space, and up the face of the balconies run old wistaria- 
vines. Each house, through the crisscrossing of upright and 
lateral lines, is fronted with nine open square spaces, like 
Brobdingnagian pigeon-holes. 



VANISHINa NEW YORK 191 

On West Eleventh Street is a row almost identical in 
appearance. If you follow Eleventh Street eastward, and 
find that it does not cut across Broadway, you will remem- 
ber that this comes from the efforts of Brevoort, an early 
landowner, to save a grand old tree that stood there. And 
then Grace Church gained possession, and the street re- 
mained uncut. 

A most striking vanishing hereabouts has been of the 
hotels. What an interesting group they were in this part 
of Broadway ! Even the old Astor, far down town, has gone, 
only a wrecked and empty remnant remaining. 

But a neighbor of the Astor House is an old-time build- 
ing whose loss, frequently threatened, every one who loves 
noble and beautiful architecture would deplore — the more 
than century-old city hall, which still dominates its surround- 
ings, as it has always dominated, even though now the build- 
ings round about are of towering height. 

Time-mellowed, its history has also mellowed, with myriad 
associations and happenings and tales. That a man who was 
to become Mayor of New York (it was Fernando Wood) made 
his first entry into the city as the hind leg of an elephant 
of a traveling show, and in that capacity passed for the first 
time the city hall, is a story that out-Whittingtons Whitting- 
ton.^ 

And noblest and finest of all the associations with the 
city hall is one which has to do with a time before the city 
hall arose ; for here, on the very spot where it stands, George 
Washington paraded his little army on a July day in 1776, 
and with grave solemnity, while they listened in a solemnity 
as grave, a document was read to them that had just been 
received from Philadelphia and which was forever to be 
known as the Declaration of Independence. 

It used to be, three quarters of a century ago, that people 
could go northward from the city hall on the New York and 
Harlem Railway, which built its tracks far down in this di- 

•Sir Eichard Whittington (1358-1423). Three times Lord Mayor of 
London; the hero of the legend of Whittington and Eis Cat. 



192 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

rection. It used the Park Avenue tunnel, which had been 
built in 1837 for the first horse-ear line in the world. After 
the railway made Forty-second Street its terminal, horse- 
cars again went soberly through the tunnel. What a pleasure 
to remember the tinkle, tinkle as they came jerkily jogging 
through, from somewhere up Harlemward, and, with quirky 
variety as to course, to an end somewhere near University 
Place ! A most oddly usable line. 

A few minutes' walk from University Place is one of the 
most facinating spots in New York — "St. Mark's in the 
Bouwerie," although it is actually on Second Avenue and 
Stuyvesant Street. 

The church was built in 1799, but it stands on property 
that the mighty Petrus Stuyvesant ^° owned, and on the site 
of a chapel that he built, and his tomb is beneath the pave- 
ment of the church, and the tombstone is set in the founda- 
tion-wall on the eastern side. There is an excellent bronze 
close by, fittingly made in Holland, of this whimsical, irascible, 
kind-hearted, clear-headed captain-general and governor who 
ruled this New Amsterdam, Nothing else in the city so 
gives the smack of age, the relish of the saltness of time, 
as this old church built on Stuyvesant 's land and holding his 
bones. For Stuyvesant was born when Elizabeth reigned 
in England and when Henry of Navarre, with his white 
plume, was King of France. The great New-Yorker was 
born in the very year that "Hamlet" was written.^^ 

He loved his city, and lived here after the English came 
and conquered him and seized the colony. 

This highly pictorial old church, broad-fronted, pleasant- 
porticoed, stands within a great open graveyard space, green 
with grass and sweetly shaded, and its aloofness and beauty 
are markedly enhanced by its being set high above the level 
of the streets. 

"Petrug Stuyvesant (1592-1672). The last of the Dutch governors 
of New York. In 1664 he surrendered New York to the English. His 
farm was called ' ' The Bouwerij ' '. 

" Hamlet. While the date of Hamlet can not be told with certainty 
it is reasonably sure that Shakespeare wrote his version of an older play 
about 1592. 



VANISHING NEW YOEK 193 

On Lafayette Street, once Lafayette Place, a quarter of a 
mile from St. Mark's, still stands the deserted Astor Library, 
just bought by the Y. M. H. A. as a home for immigrants, 
built three quarters of a century ago for permanence, but 
now empty and bare and grim, shorn of its Rialto-like ^^ steps, 
with closed front, as if harboring secrets behind its sadden- 
ing inaccessibility. Once-while stately gate-posts and gate- 
way, now ruinous, beside the library building, marked the 
driveway entrance of a long-vanished Astor home. 

All is dreary, dismal, desolate, and the color of the 
Venetian-like building has become a sad combination of 
chocolate brown and dull red. 

The tens of thousands of books from here, the literature 
and art of the Lenox collection, and the fine foundation of 
Tilden are united at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street. 
From what differing sources did these three mighty founda- 
tions spring! One from the tireless industry of a great 
lawyer ; ^^ one from a far-flung fur trade that over a cen- 
tury ago reached through trackless wilderness to the Pa- 
cific ; ^* one from a fortune wrung by exactions from Ameri- 
can soldiers of the Revolution, prisoners of war, who paid 
all they had in the hope of alleviating their suffering — a 
fortune inherited by a man who studied to put it out for the 
benefit of mankind in broad charity and helpfulness, in 
hospitals and colleges, and in his library, left for public 
use." 

With the old Astor Library so stripped and deserted, one 
wonders if a similar fate awaits the stately and palatial 
building to which it has gone. Will the new building some 

"Rialto. A celebrated bridge in Venice, Italy. It has a series of 
Bteps. 

"Samuel J. Tilden (1814-1886). An American lawyer, at one time 
Governor of New York. As candidate for the Presidency he won 250,000 
more votes than Eutherford B. Hayes, but lost the election in the 
Electoral College. 

"John Jacob Astor (1763-1848). A German immigrant who, through 
the founding of a great fur business, established the Astor fortune. He 
bequeathed $400,000 for the Astor Library. 

"James Lenox (1800-1880). An American philanthropist who 
founded the great Lenox Library. 



194 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

day vanish? And similarly the superb and mighty struc- 
tures that have in recent years come in connection with 
the city's northern sweep? 

A curious fate has attended the Lenox Library property. 
Given to the city, land and building and contents, the land 
and building were sold into private ownership when the 
consolidation of libraries was decided upon. The granite 
stronghold, built to endure forever, was razed, and where 
it had stood arose the most beautiful home in New York, 
which, gardened in boxwood, its owner filled with priceless 
treasures. And now he is dead, and again the land, a build- 
ing, and costly contents are willed to the city. 

Across from the old Astor Library stood Colonnade Row, 
a long and superb line of pillar-fronted grandeur; but only 
a small part now remains, with only a few of the fluted Cor- 
inthian pillars. All is shabby and forlorn, but noble even 
in shabbiness. And the remnant, one thinks, must shortly fall 
a victim to the destructive threat that hangs over everything 
in our city. 

Colonnade Row was built in the eighteen twenties. Wash- 
ington Irving lived there. One gathers the impression that 
Irving, named after Washington, lived in as many houses as 
those in which Washington slept. In the row occurred the 
wedding of President Tyler,^** an event not characterized 
by modest shrinking from publicity, for after the ceremony 
the President and his bride were driven down Broadway 
in an open carriage, drawn by four horses, to the Battery, 
whence a boat rowed them out to begin their married life 
on — of all places ! — a ship of war ! 

It is interesting to find two Virginia-born Presidents of 
the United States coming to Lafayette Street ; for here dwelt 
Monroe,^^ he of the "Doctrine," during the latter part of 
his life, at what is now the northwest corner of Lafayette 
Street and Prince; and he died there. Long since the house 
fell into sheer dinginess and wreck, and a few months ago 

"John Tyler (1790-1862). Tenth President of the United States. 

"James Monroe (1758-1831). Fifth President of the United States; 
originator of the "Monroe Doctrine", a policy designed to prevent 
foreign interference in affairs in North or South America. 



VANISHING NEW YORK 195 

was sold to be demolished ; but New York may feel pride in 
her connection with the American who, following "Washing- 
ton's example, declared against "entangling ourselves in the 
broils of Europe, or suffering the powers of the old world 
to interfere with the affairs of the new." 

Near this house Monroe was buried, in the Marble Cemetery 
on Second Street, beyond Second Avenue, a spot with high 
open iron fence in front and high brick wall behind, with 
an atmosphere of sedateness and repose, although a tenement 
district has come round about. Monroe's body lay here for 
a quarter of a century, and then Virginia belatedly carried 
it to Virginian soil. 

Close by, entered through a narrow tunnel-like entrance 
at 411/2 Second Avenue, is another Marble Cemetery (the 
Monroe burying-place is the New York City Marble Ceme- 
tery, and this other is the New York Marble Cemetery), 
and this second one is quite hidden away in inconspicuous- 
ness, as befits a place which, according to a now barely de- 
cipherable inscription, was established as "a place of inter- 
ment for gentlemen, ' ' surely the last word in exclusiveness ! 

Across the street from the entrance to this cemetery for 
gentlemen is a church for the common people, one of the 
pleasant surprises of a kind which one frequently comes 
upon in New York — a building really distinguished in ap- 
pearance, yet not noticed or known. A broad flight of steps 
stretches across the broad church front. There are tall pil- 
lar and pilasters, excellent iron fencing and gateway. The 
interior is all of the color of pale ivory, with much of classic 
detail and with a "Walls-of-Troy" pattern along the gal- 
lery. There were a score of such classic churches in New 
York early in the last century. 

Always in finding the unexpected there is charm, as when, 
the other day, we came by the merest chance upon "Extra 
Place"! What a name! It is a little court nooked out of 
First Street, — how many New Yorkers know that there is 
a First Street in fact and not merely in theory? — between 
Second and Third avenues. Extra Place is a stone's throw 
in length, a forgotten bit of forlornness, but at its end, beyond 



196 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

sheds and tall board fencing, are suggestions of pleasant 
homes of a distant past, great fireplace chimneys and queer 
windows, and an old shade tree, and under the tree a brick- 
paved walk, formal in its rectangle, where happy people 
walked in the long ago, and where once a garden smiled, 
but where now no kind of flower grows wild. 

The tree of the New York tenements is the ailantus, palm- 
like in its youth, brought originally from China for the gar- 
dens of the rich. It grows in discouraging surroundings, is 
defiant of smoke, does not even ask to be planted ; for, Topsy- 
like, it "jest grows." Cut it down, and it comes up again. 
It is said to have no insect enemies. An odd point in its 
appearance is that every branch points up. 

The former extraordinary picturesqueness of the water- 
front has gone ; but still there is much there that is strange, 
and a general odor of oakum and tar remains. And, lead- 
ing back from the East-Side waterfront, narrow, ancient 
lanes have been preserved, and by these one may enter the 
old-time warehouse portion of the city, where still the 
permeative smell of drugs or leather or spice differentiates 
district from district. 

Vanished is many a delightful old name. Pie Woman's 
Lane became Nassau Street. Oyster Pasty Alley became 
Exchange Alley. Clearly, early New Yorkers were a gusta- 
tory folk. 

A notable vanishing has within a few months come to Wall 
Street itself — the vanishing of the last outward and visible 
sign of the feud of Alexander Hamilton ^^ and Aaron Burr.^^ 
Hamilton was the leading spirit in establishing one bank 
in the city, and Burr, through a clause in a water-company 
charter, established another, and tlirough all these decades 
the banks have been rivals. Now they have united their 
financial fortunes and become one bank. 

An interesting rector of Trinity Church, which looks in 
such extraordinary fashion into the narrow gorge of Wall 

"* Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804). A great American statesman and 
financier. He was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr (1756-1836), an 
American politician. 



VANISHING NEW YORK 197 

Street, became over a century ag^o Bishop of New York, 
Benjamin Moore, and he is chiefly interesting, after all, 
through his early connection with the then distant region 
still known as Chelsea, in the neighborhood of Twenty-third 
Street and the North River, where he acquired great land- 
holdings that had been owned by the English naval cap- 
tain who had made his home here and given the locality its 
name. 

Chelsea still holds is own as an interesting neighborhood, 
mainly because of its possession of the General Theological 
Seminary, which has attracted and held desirable people 
and given an atmosphere of quiet seclusion. 

The seminary buildings occupy the entire block between 
Ninth and Tenth avenues and Twentieth and Twenty-first 
streets. They are largely of English style, and there are 
long stretches of ten-foot garden wall. Now and then a 
mortar-boarded student strides hurriedly across an open 
space, and now and then a professor paces portentously. 
The buildings are mostly of brick, but the oldest is an odd- 
looking structure of silver-gray stone. The varied struc- 
tures unite in effective conjunction. It may be mentioned 
that, owing to a Vanderbilt who looked about for something 
which in his opinion would set the seminary in the front 
rank, its library possesses more ancient Latin Bibles, so it 
is believed, than does even the Bodleian.^^ 

The chapel stands in the middle of the square, and above 
it rises a square Magdalen-like tower,^° softened by ivy ; and, 
following a beautiful old custom as it has been followed 
since the tower was built, capped and gowned students 
gather at sunrise on Easter morning on the top of this tall 
tower and sing ancient chorals to the music of trombone 
and horn. 

Chelsea ought to be the most home-like region in New 
York on account of its connection with Christmas; for a 

" The Bodleian Library. The great library of Oxford University, 
England, named after Sir Thomas Bodley, one of its founders. 

" Magdalen College. One of the colleges of Oxford University, 
England. It is noted for an especially beautiful tower. 



198 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

son of Bishop Moore, Clement C. Moore,-^ who gave this land 
to the seminary, and made his own home in Chelsea, wrote 
the childhood classic, " 'T was the night before Christmas." 

In this old-time neighborhood stand not only houses, but 
long-established little shops. One for drugs, for example, 
is marked as dating back to 1839. But, after all, that is not 
so old as a great Fifth Avenue shop which was established 
in 1826. However, there is this difference : the Chelsea shops 
are likely to be on the very spots where they were first 
opened, whereas the great shop of Fifth Avenue has reached 
its location by move after move, from its beginning on Grand 
Street, when that was the fashionable shopping street of 
the city. 

In Chelsea are still to be found the old pineapple-topped 
newel-posts of wrought iron, like openwork urns ; there are 
old houses hidden erratically behind those on the street-front. 
One in particular remains in mind, a large old-fashioned 
dwelling, now reached only by a narrow and built-over pas- 
sage, a house that looks like a haunted house, from its deso- 
late disrepair, its lost loneliness of location. 

Chelsea is a region of yellow cats and green shutters, 
shabby green on the uncared for and fresh green for the 
well kept. Old New York used typically to temper the dog- 
days behind green slat shutters, or under shop awnings 
stretched to the curb, and with brick sidewalks, sprinkled 
in the early afternoon from a sprinkling-can in the 'prentice 
hand. 

One of the admirable old houses of Chelsea is that where 
dwelt that unquiet spirit, Edwin Forrest,^- the actor. It 
is at 436 West Twenty-second Street, a substantial-looking, 
square-fronted house, with a door of a gi*eat single panel. 
And the interior is notable for the beautiful spiral stair 
that figured in court in his marital troubles. 

There are in Chelsea two more than usually delightful 

"Clement C. Moore (1779-1863). A wealthy American scholar and 
teacher who wrote the poem, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. 

*" Edwin Forrest (1806-1872). A great American actor, noted for his 
rendition of Shakespeare. 



VANISHING NEW YOEK 199 

residential survivals, with the positively delightful old names 
of Chelsea Cottages and London Terrace. The cottages are 
on Twenty-fourth Street, and the Terrace is on Twenty-third, 
and each is between Ninth and Tenth avenues, and both were 
built three quarters of a century ago. 

The cottages are alternating three-story and two-story 
houses, built tightly shoulder to shoulder, astonishingly nar- 
row-fronted, each with a grassy space in front. Taken to- 
gether, they make one of the last stands on Manhattan of 
simple and modest and concerted picturesque living. 

The Terrace is a highly distinguished row of high-pilastered 
houses, set behind grassy, deep dooryards. There are pre- 
cisely eighty-eight three-and-a-half-story pilasters on the front 
of this stately row. The houses have a general composite 
effect of yellowish gray. They are built on the London plan 
of the drawing-room on the second floor, so that those that 
live there "go down to dinner." The drawing-rooms are of 
pleasant three-windowed spaciousness, extending across each 
house-front. 

The terrace is notable in high-stooped New York in having 
the entrance-doors on virtually the sidewalk level. That the 
familiar and almost omnipresent high-stooped houses of the 
nineteenth century ought all to have been constructed with- 
out the long flight of outside stone steps characteristic of 
the city is shown by a most interesting development on 
East Nineteenth Street, between Third Avenue and Irving 
Place. There the houses have been excellently and artistically 
remodeled, with highly successful and highly satisfactory re- 
sults. With comparatively slight cost, there has been altera- 
tion of commonplaceness into beauty. 

The high front steps have been removed, and the front 
doors put down to where they ought to be. Most of the 
house-fronts have been given a stucco coat, showing what 
could be done with myriad commonplace houses of the city. 

The houses are colorfully painted tawny red or cream or 
gray or pale pink or an excellent shade of brown. You think 
of it as the happiest-looking street in New York. Solid shut- 
ters add their effect, some the green of bronze patina. There 



200 MODEKN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

are corbeled gables. Some of the roofs are red-tiled. Two 
little two-story stables have been transformed by little Gothic 
doors. There are vines. There are box-bushes. There are 
flowers in terra-cotta boxes on low area walls. Here and 
there is a delightful little iron balcony, here and there a 
gargoyle. On one roof two or three storks are gravely 
standing! There are charming area-ways, and plane-trees 
have been planted for the entire block. And here the van- 
ishing is of the undesirable. 

On Stuyvesant Square, near by, are the Quaker buildings, 
standing in an atmosphere of peace which they themselves 
have largely made — ^buildings of red brick with white trim- 
mings, and with a fine air of gentleness and repose ; a little 
group that, so one hopes, is very far indeed from the vanish- 
ing point. 

And there is fine old Gramercy Park, whose dignified 
homes in the past were owned by men of the greatest promi- 
nence. Many of the great homes still remain, and the cen- 
tral space, tall, iron-fenced, is still exclusively locked from 
all but the privileged, the dwellers in the houses on the park. 
And there, amid the grass and the trees, sedate little chil- 
dren, with little white or black dogs, play sedately for 
hours. 

We went for luncheon, with two recent woman's college 
graduates, all familiar with New York, into the club house 
that was the home of Samuel J. Tilden, Our companions 
were unusually excellent examples of the best that the col- 
leges produce; they were of American ancestry. But any 
New-Yorker will feel that much of the spirit of the city has 
vanished, that much of the honored and intimate tradition 
has gone, when we say that, it being mentioned that this had 
been the Tilden home, it developed that neither of them had 
ever heard of Samuel J. Tilden. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What is the authors* attitude toward the past? 

2. What does the essay say concerning change? / 

3. In what spirit does the essay mention old buildings? ' 



VANISHING NEW YORK 201 

4. What does the essay prophesy for the future? 

5. Tell the origin of some of the street names in New York City. 

6. What does the essay say concerning the influence of people who 

are now dead? 

7. Point out examples of pleasant suggestion. 

8. Show where the writers express originality of thought. 

9. What is the plan of the essay? 

a^O. What advantage does the essay gain by making so frequent 
reference to names of people? 

11. How do the writers gain coherence? 

12. Point out pleasing allusions. 

13. What spirit does the essay grouse? 

14. What do the writers think concerning the present? 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Things That Have Vanished 11. A Trip About Town 

2. My Own Town Years Ago 12. Some Curious Buildings 

3. Old Buildings 13. The Highway 

4. The People of a Former Day 14. The Founding of My Town 

5. Legacies 15. Early Settlers 

6. Street Names 16. My Ancestors 

7. The Story of a Street 17. Family Relics 

8. The Story of an Old House 18. A Walk in the Country 

9. The Farm 19. The Making of a City 
10. Eternal Change 20. Main Street 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Your object is not to tell what you do on any walk that you 
choose to take, nor is it to tell what you see. You are not to try to 
inform people concerning facts. You are to give them pleasing 
impressions that come to you as you meditate on something that 
has changed. 

In order to do this you must, first of all, have a real experience, 
both in visiting a place and in feeling emotion. Then you must 
make a plan for your wiiting, so that you will take your reader 
just as easily and just as naturally as possible over the ground 
that you wish him to visit in imagination. 

Make many allusions to people, to books, to events, and to any- 



202 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

thing else that will bring back the past vividly. Make that past 
appear in all its charm. You can do this best if your emotion is 
real, and if you pay considerable attention to your style of writing. 
Use many adjectives and adjective expressions. Above all, try to 
find words that will be highly suggestive. 



THE SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR* 

By BRANDER MATTHEWS 

• (1852 — ). One of the most influential American critics and 
essayists, Professor of Dramatic Literature in Columbia Uni- 
versity. He was one of the founders of The Authors' Club, and 
The Players, and a leader in organizing the American Copy- 
right League. He is a member of the National Institute of 
Arts and Letters. He is the author of works that illustrate 
many types of literature, including novels, short stories, essays, 
poems and plays. Among his books are: A Story of the Sea, 
and Other Stories ; Pen and Ink ; Americanisms and Briticisms ; 
The Story of a Story; Vignettes of Manhattan; His Father's 
Son; Aspects of Fiction; Essays in English; The American 
of the Future. 

When companionable people meet in pleasant converse, whether before 
the open fire at home, or in chance gatherings at any place, they tell 
one another about the interesting experiences that they have had or the 
discoveries that they have made. If you could, place on paper what 
any one of them says, except in narration, and if you could, at the 
same time, show the feeling and the spirit of the speaker, — if you 
could in some way transfer the personality of the speaker to the 
paper, — you would, in all probability, produce an essay. 

The author of The Songs of the Civil War has learned some inter- 
esting facts concerning our national songs. He communicates those 
facts as he would to a company of friends, indicating throughout his 
remarks his own interests and beliefs. His words are the pleasant 
words of friendship, — not the formal giving of information that char- 
acterizes most encyclopedia articles. That part of his essay which is 
given here is suflBcient to indicate the charm of his presentation. 

A NATIONAL hymn is one of the things which cannot be 

made to order. No man has ever yet sat him down and 

taken up his pen and said, "I will write a national hymn," 

and composed either words or music which a nation was 

willing to take for its own. The making of the song of 

the people is a happy accident, not to be accomplished by 

taking thought. It must be the result of fiery feeling long 

* From "Pen and Ink" by Brander Matthews. Copyright, 1888, by 
Longmans. Printed here by special permission of Professor Matthews. 

203 



204 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

confined, and suddenly finding vent in burning words or 
moving strains. Sometimes the heat and the pressure of 
emotion have been fierce enough and intense enough to call 
forth at once both words and music, and to weld them together 
indissolubly once and for all. Almost always the maker of 
the song does not suspect the abiding value of his work; 
he has wrought unconsciously, moved by a power within; 
he has written for immediate relief to himself, and with no 
thought of fame or the future; he has builded better than 
he knew. The great national lyric is the result of the con- 
junction of the hour and the man. Monarch cannot com- 
mand it, and even poets are often powerless to achieve it. 
No one of the great national hymns has been written by a 
great poet. But for his single immortal lyric, neither the 
author of the "Marseillaise" ^ nor the author of the "Wacht 
am Rhein"^ would have his line in the biographical dic- 
tionaries. But when a song has once taken root in the 
hearts of a people, time itself is powerless against it. The 
flat and feeble "Partant pour la Syrie," which a filial 
fiat made the hymn of imperial France, had to give way to the 
strong and virile notes of the "Marseillaise," when need 
was to arouse the martial spirit of the French in 1870. The 
noble measures of "God Save the King," as simple and dig- 
nified a national hymn as any country can boast, lift up 
the hearts of the English people; and the brisk tune of the 
"British Grenadiers" has swept away many a man into the 
ranks of the recruiting regiment. The English are rich in 
war tunes and the pathetic "Girl I Left Behind Me" en- 
courages and sustains both those who go to the front and 
those who remain at home. Here in the United States we 
have no ' ' Marseillaise, " no " God Save the King, " no " Wacht 
am Rhein"; we have but "Yankee Doodle" and the "Star- 
spangled Banner." More than one enterprising poet, and 
more than one aspiring musician, has volunteered to take 

* Author of the Marseillaise. Rouget de Lisle (1760-1836). An en- 
thusiastic French Captain who composed the Marseillaise at Strasburg 
on April 24, 1792, as a song for the Army of the Rhine. 

* Author of the Wacht am BUein. Max. Sehneekenburger (1819- 
1849). 



THE SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAE 206 

the contract to supply the deficiency ; as yet no one has suc- 
ceeded. "Yankee Doodle" we got during the revolution, 
and the ''Star-spangled Banner" was the gift of the "War of 
1812 ; from the Civil War we have received at least two war 
songs which, as war songs simply, are stronger and finer 
than either of these — "John Brown's Body" and "Marching 
Through Georgia." 

Of the lyrical outburst which the war called forth but 
little trace is now to be detected in literature except by spe- 
cial students. In most cases neither words nor music have 
had vitality enough to survive a quarter of a century. 
Chiefly, indeed, two things only survive, one Southern and 
the other Northern ; one a war-cry in verse, the other a 
martial tune : one is the lyric ' ' My Maryland ' ' and the other 
is the marching song "John Brown's Body." The origin and 
development of the latter, the rude chant to which a million 
of the soldiers of the Union kept time, is uncertain and 
involved in dispute. The history of the former may be 
declared exactly, and by the courtesy of those who did the 
deed — for the making of a war song is of a truth a deed 
at arms — I am enabled to state fully the circumstances 
under which it was written, set to music, and first sung 
before the soldiers of the South. 

"My Maryland" was written by Mr. James R. Randall, a 
native of Baltimore, and now residing in Augusta, Georgia. 
The poet was a professor of English literature and the classics 
in Poydras College at Pointe Coupee, on the Faussee Riviere, 
in Louisiana, about seven miles from the Mississippi; and 
there in April, 1861, he read in the New Orleans Delta the 
news of the attack on the Massachusetts troops as they passed 
through Baltimore. "This account excited me greatly," Mr. 
Randall wrote in answer to my request for information; "I 
had long been absent from my native city, and the startling 
event there inflamed my mind. That night I could not sleep, 
for my nerves were all unstrung, and I could not dismiss 
what I had read in the paper from my mind. About mid- 
night I rose, lit a candle, and went to my desk. Some power- 
ful spirit appeared to possess me, and almost involuntarily 



206 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

I proceeded to write the song of 'My Maryland.' I re- 
member that the idea appeared to first take shape as music 
in the brain — some wild air that I cannot now recall. The 
whole poem was dashed off rapidly when once begun. It 
was not composed in cold blood, but under what may be 
called a conflagration of the senses, if not an inspiration of 
the intellect. I was stirred to a desire for some way linking 
my name with that of my native State, if not 'with my land's 
language'. But I never expected to do this with one single, 
supreme effort, and no one was more surprised than I was 
at the widespread and instantaneous popularity of the lyric 
I had been so strangely stimulated to write." Mr. Randall 
read the poem the next morning to the college boys, and at 
their suggestion sent it to the Delta, in which it was first 
printed, and from which it was copied into nearly every 
Southern journal. "I did not concern myself much about 
it, but very soon, from all parts of the country, there was 
borne to me, in my remote place of residence, evidence that 
I had made a great hit, and that, whatever might be the 
fate of the Confederacy, the song would survive it. ' ' 

Published in the last days of April, 1861, when every 
eye was fixed on the border States, the stirring stanzas of the 
Tyrtsean bard ^ appeared in the very nick of time. There is 
often a feeling afloat in the minds of men, undefined and 
vague for want of one to give it form, and held in solution, 
as it were, until a chance word dropped in the ear of a 
poet suddenly crystallizes this feeling into song, in which all 
may see clearly and sharply reflected what in their own 
thought was shapeless and hazy. It was Mr. Eandall's good 
fortune to be the instrument through which the South spoke. 
By a natural reaction his burning lines helped to fire the 
Southern heart. To do their work well, his words needed 
to be wedded to music. Unlike the authors of the "Star- 
spangled Banner" and the "Marseillaise," the author of 
"My Maryland" had not written it to fit a tune already 

•Tyrtaean Bard. Tyrtaeus (7th century B.C.) was an unknown 
crippled Greek school teacher who wrote songs of such power that they 
inspired the Spartans to victory. 



THE SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR 207 

familiar. It was left for a lady of Baltimore to lend the lyric 
the musical wings it needed to enable it to reach every camp- 
fire of the Southern armies. To the courtesy of this lady, then 
Miss Hetty Gary, and now the wife of Professor H. Newell 
Martin, of Johns Hopkins University, I am indebted for a 
picturesque description of the marriage of the words to 
the music, and of the first singing of the song before the 
Southern troops. 

The house of Mrs. Martin's father was the headquarters 
for the Southern sympathizers of Baltimore. Correspond- 
ence, money, clothing, supplies of all kinds went thence 
through the lines to the young men of the city who had 
joined the Confederate army. "The enthusiasm of the girls 
who worked and of the 'boys' who watched for their chance 
to slip through the lines to Dixie's land found vent and 
inspiration in such patriotic songs as could be made or 
adapted to suit our needs. The glee club was to hold its meet- 
ing in our parlors one evening early in June, and my sister, 
Miss Jenny Cary, being the only musical member of the 
family, had charge of the program on the occasion. "With 
a school-girl's eagerness to score a success, she resolved 
to secure some new and ardent expression of feelings that 
by this time were wrought up to the point of explosion. 
In vain she searched through her stock of songs and airs — 
nothing seemed intense enough to suit her. Aroused by her 
tone of despair, I came to the rescue with the suggestion 
that she should adapt the words of 'Maryland, my Mary- 
land,' which had been constantly on my lips since the ap- 
pearance of the lyric a few days before in the South. I 
produced the paper and began declaiming the verses. 
' Lauriger Horatius ! ' * she exclaimed, and in a flash the im- 
mortal song found voice in the stirring air so perfectly 
adapted to it. That night, when her contralto voice rang 
out the stanzas, the refrain rolled forth from every throat 
present without pause or preparation; and the enthusiasm 
communicated itself with such effect to a crowd assembled 

* Lauriger Horatius. The first words of a well-known college song 
written in Latin. 



208 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIIB 

beneath our open windows as to endanger seriously the lib- 
erties of the party." 

"Lauriger Horatius" had long been a favorite college song, 
and it had been introduced into the Gary household by Mr. 
Burton N. Harrison, then a Yale student. The air to which 
it is sung is used also for a lovely German lyric, "Tannen- 
baum, Tannenbaum, " which Longfellow has translated "0 
Hemlock Tree." 'f'he transmigration of tunes is too large 
and fertile a subject for me to do more here than refer to 
it. The taking of the air of a jovial college song to use as 
the setting of a fiery war-lyric may seem strange and curious, 
but only to those who are not familiar with the adventures 
and transformations a tune is often made to undergo. Hop- 
kinson 's ^ " Hail Columbia ! ' ' for example, was written to the 
tune of the "President's March," just as Mrs. Howe's^ 
"Battle Hymn of the Republic" was written to "John 
Brown's Body." The "Wearing of the Green," of the Irish- 
man, is sung to the same air as the ' ' Benny Havens, O ! " of 
the West-Pointer, The "Star-spangled Banner" has to make 
shift with the second-hand music of "Anacreon in Heaven," 
while our other national air, "Yankee Doodle," uses over the 
notes of an old English nursery rhyme, "Lucy Locket," once 
a personal lampoon in the days of the "Beggars' Opera,"'' 
and now surviving in the "Baby's Opera" of Mr. Walter 
Crane.* "My Country, 'tis of Thee," is set to the truly 
British tune of "God Save the King," the origin of which is 
doubtful, as it is claimed by the French and the Germans as 
well as the English. In the hour of battle a war-tune is sub- 
ject to the right of capture, and, like the cannon taken from 
the enemy, it is turned against its maker. 

"Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842). Author of Hail Columbia! He 
was the son of Francis Hopkinson who signed the Declaration of 
Independence. 

« Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910). Author of the Battle Hymn of the 
Republic, which she wrote in 1861 as the result of a visit to a great 
camp near Washington. 

''Beggars' Opera. An opera written by John Gay (1685-1732). The 
songs in the opera made use of well-known Scotch and English tunes. 
The opera itself is a satire on dishonesty in public life. 

'Walter Crane (1845-1915). An English painter and producer of 
children's books. 



THE SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAE 209 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Why cannot a national hymn be made to order? 

2. Why is it true that the great national hymns have not been 

written by great poets'? 

3. What establishes the worth of a national hymn"? 

4. Name the best national hymns of the United States. 

5. What are some of the best national hymns of other countries? 

6. What type of music is necessary for a good national hymn? 

7. Tell the story of the origin of My Maryland. 

8. What sources gave rise to the music of many of our national 
hymns? 

9. Explain the last sentence of the essay. 

10. Point out the respects in which the essay differs from an encyl- 
clopedia article. 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Popular Songs 11. Games 

2. Popular Music 12. Athletic Sports 

3. Popular Opera 13. Streets 

4. Fashions in Dress 14. Furniture 

5. Every Day Habits 15. Dancing 

6. Hats 16. Mother Goose Rimes 

7. Buttons 17. Favorite Poems 

8. Uniforms 18. Legends 

9. Social Customs 19. Evangeline 

10. Architecture 20. Political Customs 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

When you have chosen a subject consult encyclopedias and other 
works of reference and find out all you can that is peculiarly in- 
teresting to you. Do not make any attempt to record all the facts 
that you may learn. Select those that make some deep appeal to 
you and that will be likely to have unusual interest for others. 
When you write do all that you can to avoid the encyclopedia 
method. Write in a pleasantly familiar manner that will carry 
your interests and your personality. 



LOCOMOTION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY * 

By H. G. WELLS 

(1866 — ). A leading novelist, essayist and historian. 
Through his energy and high ability he tvon his way to a place 
in the educational world, and ultimately to a commanding posi- 
tion in the literary world. He writes with unusual vigor and 
originality. Some of his most stimulating books are The Time 
Machine; The War of the Worlds; When the Sleeper Wakes; 
Anticipations; Tono Bungay; The Future of America; Social 
Forces in England and America; The History of the World. 

Some essays go beyond the world of little things and set forward 
their writers' meditations on matters of great import. Such essays 
look back across the whole field of history or look forward into the 
remoteness of the future. In essays of this kind Mr. H. G. Wells has 
done much to stimulate thought. 

In the selection that follows Mr. Wells traces the development of 
locomotion from the days of wagons to the days of steam. At the close 
of the selection Mr. Wells suggests to the reader that the advance to be 
made in the future may be as great as that which has been made in 
the past. 

The beginning of this twentieth century happens to coin- 
cide with a very interesting phase in that great development 
of means of land transit that has been the distinctive feature 
(speaking materially) of the nineteenth century. The nine- 
teenth century, when it takes its place with the other centuries 
in the chronological charts of the future, will, if it needs a 
symbol, almost inevitably have as that symbol a steam-engine 
running upon a railway. This period covers the first ex- 
periments, the first great developments, and the complete 
elaboration of that mode of transit, and the determination of 
nearly all the broad features of this century's history may 
be traced directly or indirectly to that process. And since 

* From ' ' Anticipations " by H. G. Wells. Copyright by the North 
American Eeview Publishing Company, 1901; copyright by Harper 
and Brother, 1902. 

210 



LOCOMOTION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 211 

an interesting light is thrown upon the new phases in land 
locomotion that are now beginning, it will be well to begin 
this forecast with a retrospect, and to revise very shortly 
the history of the addition of steam travel to the resources of 
mankind. 

A curious and profitable question arises at once. How is 
it that the steam locomotive appeared at the time it did, and 
not earlier in the history of the world? 

Because it was not invented. But why was it not invented? 
Not for want of a crowning intellect, for none of the many 
minds concerned in the development strikes one — as the mind 
of Newton, Shakespeare, or Darwin ^ strikes one — as being 
that of an unprecedented man. It is not that the need for 
the railway and steam-engine had only just arisen, and — to 
use one of the most egregiously wrong and misleading phrases 
that ever dropped from the lips of man — the demand created 
the supply; it was quite the other way about. There was 
really no urgent demand for such things at the time; the 
current needs of the European world seem to have been fairly 
well served by coach and diligence in 1800, and, on the other 
hand, every administrator of intelligence in the Roman and 
Chinese empires must have felt an urgent need for more rapid 
methods of transit than those at his disposal. Nor was the 
development of the steam locomotive the result of any sudden 
discovery of steam. Steam, and something of the mechanical 
possibilities of steam, had been known for two thousand 
years; it had been used for pumping water, opening doors, 
and working toys before the Christian era. It may be urged 
that this advance was the outcome of that new and more 
systematic handling of knowledge initiated by Lord Bacon ^ 

^Newton, Shakespeare, or Darwin. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). 
A great English mathematician, especially noted for his establishment 
of knowledge of the law of gravitation. William Shakespeare (1564- 
1616). The great English dramatist, regarded as the greatest of 
English writers. Charles Darwin (1809-1882). The English natural- 
ist, who established a theory of evolution. Three of the most intel- 
lectual men of all time. 

'Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). A great English philosopher, who 
established the inductive study of science, that is, study through investi- 
gation and experiment. 



212 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

and sustained by the Royal Society ; ' but this does not appear 
to have been the case, though no doubt the new habits of 
mind that spread outward from that center played their part. 
The men whose names are cardinal in the history of this 
development invented, for the most part, in a quite empirical 
way, and Trevithick's * engine was running along its rails and 
Evan 's ^ boat was walloping up the Hudson a quarter of a 
century before Carnot ^ expounded his general proposition. 
There were no such deductions from principles to application 
as occur in the story of electricity to justify our attribution 
of the steam-engine to the scientific impulse. Nor does this 
particular invention seem to have been directly due to the 
new possibilities of reducing, shaping, and casting iron, 
afforded by the substitution of coal for wood in iron works, 
through the greater temperature afforded by a coal fire. In 
China coal has been used in the reduction of iron for many 
centuries. No doubt these new facilities did greatly help the 
steam-engine in its invasion of the field of common life, but 
quite certainly they were not sufficient to set it going. It 
was, indeed, not one cause, but a very complex and unprece- 
dented series of causes, set the steam locomotive going. It 
was indirectly, and in another way, that the introduction of 
coal became the decisive factor. One peculiar condition of 
its production in England seems to have supplied just one 
ingredient that had been missing for two thousand years in 
the group of conditions that were necessary before the steam 
locomotive could appear. 

This missing ingredient was a demand for some compara- 
tively simple, profitable machine, upon which the elementary 
principles of steam utilization could be worked out. If one 

* The Royal Society. Established about 1660 in London, England, for 
the study of science. It has had a great influence in developing scien- 
tific knowledge. 

* Richard Trevithick (1771-1833). An English inventor who did much 
to improve the steam engine. In 1801 his locomotive conveyed the first 
passengers ever carried by steam. 

° Oliver Evans (1755-1819). An American inventor who was one of 
the first to use steam at high pressure. 

VSadi Carnot (1796-1832). A French physicist whose "principle" 
concerns the development of power through the use of heat. 



LOCOMOTION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 213 

studies Stephenson 's ' ' Rocket " '^ in detail, as one realizes its 
profound complexity, one begins to understand how impos- 
sible it would have been for that structure to have come into 
existence de novo,^ however urgently the world had need of it. 
But it happened that the coal needed to replace the dwindling 
forests of this small and exceptionally rain-saturated country 
occurs in low, hollow basins overlying clay, and not, as in 
China and the AUeghenies, for example, on high-lying out- 
crops, that can be worked as chalk is worked in England. 
From this fact it followed that some quite unprecedented 
pumping appliances became necessary, and the thoughts of 
practical men were turned thereby to the long-neglected pos- 
sibilities of steam. Wind was extremely inconvenient for the 
purpose of pumping, because in these latitudes it is incon- 
stant: it was costly, too, because at any time the laborers 
might be obliged to sit at the pit's mouth for weeks together, 
whistling for a gale or waiting for the water to be got under 
again. But steam had already been used for pumping upon 
one or two estates in England — rather as a toy than in earnest 
— before the middle of the seventeenth century, and the at- 
tempt to employ it was so obvious as to be practically un- 
avoidable.® The water trickling into the coal measures ^"^ acted, 
therefore, like water trickling upon chemicals that have long 
been mixed together, dry and inert. Immediately the latent 
reactions were set going. Savery,^^ Newcome,^^ a host of other 
workers culminating in Watt,^^ working always by steps that 
were at least so nearly obvious as to give rise again and again 
to simultaneous discoveries, changed this toy of steam into a 

* Stephenson 's Eocket. A locomotive made in 1829 by George Stephen- 
son (1781-1848), which was so successful that it won a prize of £500. 
Stephenson was one of the most potent forces in developing steam 
locomotion. 

* De Novo. As something entirely new. 

* It might have been used in the same way in Italy in the first century, 
had not the grandiose taste for aqueducts prevailed. 

"•And also into the Cornwall mines, be it noted. 

■"Captain Thomas Savery (1650?-1715). An English engineer who 
made one of the first steam engines in 1705, working in connection with 
Thomas Ncwcome. 

"James Watt (1736-1819). A Seotch inventor who in 1765 perfected 
the condensing steam engine. 



214 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

real, a commercial thing, developed a trade in pumping- 
engines, created foundries and a new art of engineering, and, 
almost unconscious of what they were doing, made the steam 
locomotive a well-nigh unavoidable consequence. At last, 
after a century of improvement on pumping-engines, there 
remained nothing but the very obvious stage of getting the 
engine that had been developed on wheels and out upon the 
ways of the world. 

Ever and ever again during the eighteenth century an 
engine would be put upon the roads and pronounced a failure 
— one monstrous Palgeoferric creature ^^ was visible on a 
French high-road as early as 1769 — but by the dawn of the 
nineteenth century the problem had very nearly got itself 
solved. By 1804 Trevithick had a steam locomotive indis- 
putably in motion and almost financially possible, and from 
his hands it puffed its way, slowly at first, and then, under 
Stephenson, faster and faster, to a transitory empire over the 
earth. It was a steam locomotive — but for all that it was pri- 
marily a steam-engine for pumping adapted to a new end ; it 
was a steam-engine whose ancestral stage had developed under 
conditions that were by no means exacting in the matter of 
weight. And from that fact followed a consequence that has 
hampered railway travel and transport very greatly, and 
that is tolerated nowadays only through a belief in its prac- 
tical necessity. The steam locomotive was all too huge and 
heavy for the high-road — it had to be put upon rails. And 
so clearly linked are steam-engines and railways in our minds, 
that, in common language now, the latter implies the former. 
But, indeed, it is the result of accidental impediments, of 
avoidable difficulties, that we travel to-day on rails. 

Railway traveling is at best a compromise. The quite con- 
ceivable ideal of locomotive convenience, so far as travelers 
are concerned, is surely a highly mobile conveyance capable 
of traveling easily and swiftly to any desired point, travers- 
ing, at a reasonably controlled pace, the ordinary roads and 
streets, and having access for higher rates of speed and long- 
distance traveling to specialized ways restricted to swift 

" Palaeof erric creature. Ancient iron creature. 



LOCOMOTION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTUEY 215 

traffic and possibly furnislied with guide rails. For the col- 
lection and delivery of all sorts of perishable goods also the 
same system is obviously altogether superior to the existing 
methods. Moreover, such a system would admit of that 
secular progress in engines and vehicles that the stereotyped 
conditions of the railway have almost completely arrested, 
because it would allow almost any new pattern to be put at 
once upon the ways without interference with the established 
traffic. Had such an ideal been kept in view from the first, 
the traveler would now be able to get through his long- 
distance journeys at a pace of from seventy miles or more 
an hour without changing, and without any of the trouble, 
waiting, expense, and delay that arise between the household 
or hotel and the actual rail. It was an ideal that must have 
been at least possible to an intelligent person fifty years ago, 
and, had it been resolutely pursued, the world, instead of 
fumbling from compromise to compromise as it always has 
done, and as it will do very probably for many centuries yet, 
might have been provided to-day, not only with an infinitely 
more practicable method of communication, but with one 
capable of a steady and continual evolution from year to year. 

But there was a more obvious path of development and one 
immediately cheaper, and along that path went short-sighted 
Nineteenth Century Progress, quite heedless of the possi- 
bility of ending in a cul-de-sac.^* The first locomotives, apart 
from the heavy tradition of their ancestry, were, like all ex- 
perimental machinery, needlessly clumsy and heavy, and 
their inventors, being men of insufficient faith, instead of 
working for lightness and smoothness of motion, took the 
easier course of placing them upon the tramways that were 
already in existence — chiefly for the transit of heavy goods 
over soft roads. And from that followed a very interesting 
and curious result. 

These tram-lines very naturally had exactly the width of 
an ordinary cart, a width prescribed by the strength of one 
horse. Few people saw in the locomotive anything but a 
cheap substitute for horseflesh, or found anything incongru- 

^* Cul-de-sac. A passage closed at one end. 



216 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

ous in letting the dimensions of a horse determine the di- 
mensions of an engine. It mattered nothing that from the 
first the passenger was ridiculously cramped, hampered, and 
crowded in the carriage. He had always been cramped in a 
coach, and it would have seemed ' ' Utopian ' ' ^^ — a very dread- 
ful thing indeed to our grandparents — to propose travel with- 
out cramping. By mere inertia the horse-cart gauge — the 4 
foot 8i/i> inch gauge — nemine contradicente,^'^ established itself 
in the world, and now everywhere the train is dwarfed to a 
scale that limits alike its comfort, power, and speed. Before 
every engine, as it were, trots the ghost of a superseded horse, 
refuses most resolutely to trot faster than fifty miles an hour, 
and shies and threatens catastrophe at every point and curve. 
That fifty miles an hour, most authorities are agreed, is the 
limit of our speed for land travel so far as existing conditions 
go.^^ Only a revolutionary reconstruction of the railways or 
the development of some new competing method of land travel 
can carry us beyond that. 

People of to-day take the railways for granted as they 
take sea and sky; they were born in a railway world, and 
they expect to die in one. But if only they will strip from 
their eyes the most blinding of all influences, acquiescence in 
the familiar, they will see clearly enough that this vast and 
elaborate railway system of ours, by which the whole world is 
linked together, is really only a vast system of trains of horse- 
wagons and coaches drawn along rails by pumping-engines 
upon wheels. Is that, in spite of its present vast extension, 
likely to remain the predominant method of land locomotion, 
even for so short a period as the next hundred years? 

"Utopian. In 1516 Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) wrote about an 
island called Utopia on which was an ideal government. The word 
* ' Utopian ' ' means ' ' ideal beyond hope of attainment. ' ' 

^^ Nemine contradicente. No one saying anything against it. 

" It might be worse. If the biggest horses had been Shetland ponies, 
we should be traveling now in railway carriages to hold two each side 
at a maximum speed of perhaps twenty miles an hour. There is hardly 
any reason, beyond this tradition of the horse, why the railway carriage 
should not be even nine or ten feet wide, the width that is, of the 
smallest room in which people can live in comfort, hung on such springs 
and wheels as would effectually destroy all vibration, and furnished witl^ 
all the equipment of comfortable chambers. 



LOCOMOTION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 217 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What, according to Mr. Wells, was the distinctive feature of the 

nineteenth century? 

2. Why did steam locomotion appear when it did? 

3. How many of the principles of steam locomotion had been 

known before the nineteenth century? 

4. Name all the causes that contributed to the development of 

steam locomotion. 

5. Explain the relation between the mining of coal and steam 

locomotion. 

6. What characteristics of wagons appear in steam locomotives? 

7. In what ways is modern steam locomotion unsatisfactory? 

8. What are some of the possibilities for future locomotion? 

9. On what fields of information is the essay based? 
10. What are the characteristics of Mr. Wells' style? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. The Development of Steam 11. Steps Toward the Use of 

Boats Motor Trucks 

2. The Development of the 12. The Improvement of High- 

Automobile ways 

3. The Development of the Air- 13. The Evolution of Good Side- 

plane walks 

4. The Development of the Bi- 14. The Development of the Tel- 

cycle ephone 

5. The Story of Roller Skates 15. Improved Railway Stations 

6. The Development of Com- 16. The Use of Voting Machines 

fort in Travel 17. The Protection of the Food 

7. The Story of the Sleeping Supply 

Car 18. The Increase of Forest Pro- 

8. The Development of the Din- • teetion 

ing Car 19. The Work of the Weather 

9. Comfort in Modern Carriages Bureau 

10. The Development of the Mail 20. The Development of the 

System Wireless Telegraph. 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Before you can write upon any such subject as the one upon 
which Mr. Wells wrote it will be necessary for you to obtain a wide 



218 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

amount of information. Go to any encyclopedia and find lines along 
which you can investigate further. Then consult special books that 
you may obtain in a good library. When you have gained full infor- 
mation remember that it is your business not to transmit the 
information that you have gained, but to put down on paper the 
thoughts to which the information has led you. Try to show the 
relation between the past and the present, and to indicate some 
forecast for the future. Do all this in a pleasantly straightforward 
style as though you were talking earnestly. 



THE WRITING OF ESSAYS 

By CHAELES S. BROOKS 

(1878 — ). After some years of business life, following his 
graduation from Yale, Mr. BrooJcs turned entirely to literary 
work. He has tvritten A Journey to Bagdad; Three Pippins 
and Cheese to Come; Chimney-Pot Papers. During the World 
War he served with the Department of State in Washington. 

Here is a delightful, easy-going essay that presents most effectively 
the ideals and the methods of essay writing. 

An essayist, Mr. Brooks says, has no great literary purpose to 
accomplish : he is a reader, a thinker, a person who is interested in all 
sorts of subjects just because they are interesting. He writes of the 
little things in life because he loves them. He is essentially a lover of 
books and of libraries; one who dwells in the companionship of pleasant 
thoughts; one who gives us a sort of happy gossip that comes across 
the years, redolent with the charm of personality. 

An essayist needs a desk and a library near at hand, be- 
cause an essay is a kind of back-stove cookery. A novel needs 
a hot fire, so to speak. A dozen chapters bubble in their turn 
above the reddest coals, while an essay simmers over a little 
flame. Pieces of this and that, an odd carrot, as it were, a 
left-over potato, a pithy bone, discarded trifles, are tossed in 
from time to time to feed the composition. Raw paragraphs, 
when they have stewed all night, at last become tender to the 
fork. An essay, therefore, cannot be written hurriedly on 
the knee. Essayists, as a rule, chew their pencils. Their 
desks are large and are always in disorder. There is a stack 
of books on the clock-shelf ; others are pushed under the bed. 
Matches, pencils, and bits of paper mark a hundred refer- 
ences. When an essayist goes out from his lodging he wears 
the kind of overcoat that holds a book in every pocket ; his 
sagging pockets proclaim him. He is a bulging person, so 
stuffed even in his dress with the ideas of others that his own 
leanness is concealed. An essayist keeps a notebook and he 

219 



220 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

thumbs it for forgotten thoughts. Nobody is safe from him, 
for he steals from every one he meets. Like the man in the 
old poem, he relies on his memory for his wit. 

An essayist is not a mighty traveler. He does not run to 
grapple with a roaring lion. He desires neither typhoon 
nor tempest. He is content in his harbor to listen to the storm 
upon the rocks, if now and then by a lucky chance he can 
shelter some one from the wreck. His hands are not red with 
revolt against the world. He has glanced upon the thoughts 
of many men, and as opposite philosophies point upon the 
truth, he is modest with his own and tolerant of others. He 
looks at the stars and, knowing in what a dim immensity we 
travel, he writes of little things beyond dispute. There are 
enough to weep upon the shadows; he, like a dial, marks the 
light. The small clatter of the city beneath his window, the 
cry of peddlers, children chalking their games upon the pave- 
ment, laundry dancing on the roofs, and smoke in the winter 's 
wind — these are the things he weaves into the fabric of his 
thoughts. Or sheep upon the hillside, if his window is so 
lucky, or a sunny meadow is a profitable speculation. And 
so, while the novelist is struggling up a dizzy mountain, 
straining through the tempest to see the kingdoms of the 
world, behold the essayist, snug at home, content with little 
sights ! He is a kind of poet — a poet whose wings are clipped. 
He flaps to no great heights, and sees neither the devil nor 
the seven oceans nor the twelve apostles. He paints old 
thoughts in shiny varnish and, as he is able, he mends small 
habits here and there. 

And therefore, as essayists stay at home, they are precise, 

almost amorous, in the posture and outlook of their writing. 

Leigh Hunt ^ wished a great library next his study. "But 

for the study itself," he writes, "give me a small snug place, 

almost entirely walled with books. There should be only one 

window in it, looking on trees." How the precious fellow 

scorns the mountains and the ocean ! He has no love, it 

* Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). A famous English essayist and poet, noted 
for his love of books. When he was imprisoned because of an article ridi- 
culing the Prince Eegent he sent for so many books that he made hig 
prison a sort of library. 



THE WltlTING OF ESSAYS 221 

seems, for typhoons and roaring lions. * * I entrench myself 
in my books," he continues, "equally against sorrow and the 
weather. If the wind comes down the passage, I look about 
to see how I can fence it off by a better disposition of my 
movables." And by movables he means his books. These 
were his screen against cold and trouble. But Leigh Hunt 
had been in prison for his political beliefs. He had grappled 
with his lion. So perhaps, after all, my argument fails. 

Mr. Edmund Gosse ^ had a different method to the same 
purpose. He "was so anxious to fly all outward noise" that 
he wished for a library apart from the house. Maybe he had 
had some experience with Annie and her clattering broom- 
stick. "In my sleep," he writes, " 'when dreams are multi- 
tude,' I sometimes fancy that one day I shall have a library 
in a garden. The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity 
of man. ... It sounds like having a castle in Spain, or a 
sheep-walk in Arcadia. ' ' ^ 

Montaigne 's * study was a tower, walled all about with 
books. At his table in the midst he was the general focus of 
their wisdom. Hazlitt ^ wrote much at an inn at Winterslow, 
with Salisbury Plain around the corner of his view. Except 
for ill health, and a love of the South Seas (here was the 
novelist showing itself), Stevenson^ would probably have 
preferred a windy perch overlooking Edinburgh. 

It does seem as if rather a richer flavor were given to a 
book by knowing the circumstance of its composition. Con- 
sequently readers, as they grow older, turn more and more 

'Edmund Gosse (1849- ). A noted English poet, critic, and 
student of literature. Since he based much of his writing on close 
study he naturally wished for quiet. 

*A castle in Spain, or a sheep-walk in Arcadia. Places of perfect 
happiness, where all desired things may be obtained. Arcadia is a 
mountain-surrounded section of Greece noted for its happy shepherd life. 

* Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592). The great French essayist who 
invented the familiar essay. 

= William Hazlitt (1778-1830). An English essayist, lecturer, biog- 
rapher and critic; a student of literature. 

^Eobert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). A British poet, novelist, short 
story writer and essayist, born in Edinburgh, Scotland. At various 
times he lived in France, Switzerland, the United States and the South 
Sea Islands. He wag buried in Samoa. 



222 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOKIES 

to biography. It is not chiefly the biographies that deal with 
great crises and events, but rather the biographies that are 
concerned with small circumstance and agreeable gossip. 

Lately in a book-shop at the foot of Cornhill ^ I fell in with 
an old scholar who told me that it was his practice to recom- 
mend four books, which, taken end on end, furnished the 
general history of English writing from the Restoration ^ to 
a time within his own memory. These books were Pepy's 
" Diary, "^ Boswell's "Johnson," ^^ the "Letters and Dia- 
ries" of Madame D'Arblay,^^ and the "Diary of Crabbe 
Robinson. ^^ 

Beginning almost with the days of Cromwell, here is a 
chain of pleasant gossip the space of more than two hundred 
years. Perhaps at the first there were old fellows still alive 
who could remember Shakespeare; who still sat in chimney- 
corners and babbled through their toothless gums of Black- 
friars and the Globe.^^ And at the end we find a reference to 
President Lincoln and his freeing of the slaves. 

Here are a hundred authors, perhaps a thousand, tucking 
up their cuffs, looking out from their familiar windows, 
scribbling their masterpieces. 

'' Cornhill. A famous street in London. 

* The Eestoration. The restoration of the English monarchy in 1660 
after its overthrow by the Parliamentary forces under Oliver Cromwell. 

* Samuel Pepys (1633-1703). An English business man, office-holder 
and lover of books. For nine years he kept a most personal, self- 
revealing diary, which he wrote in shorthand. The diary gives an 
accurate picture of the age in which he lived. 

^" James Boswell (1740-1795). A Scotch advocate and author, noted 
especially for his Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., a book that many 
pronounce the best biography ever written. The work makes one 
intimately acquainted with Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), a great es- 
sayist, poet, biographer, play-writer, and author of a famous dictionary 
of the English language. Dr. Johnson was a leader of the learned 
men of his time. 

"■Francis Burney D'Arblay (1752-1840). An English novelist, 
author of Evelina, and a friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Her Letters 
and Diary give an intimate account of her entire life. 

"Henry Crabbe Robinson (1775-1867). An English war-correspondent 
and social leader. His Diary gives intimate information concerning the 
great men of his time, with nearly all of whom he was personally 
acquainted. 

"Blackfriars and the Globe. London theaters in which Shakespeare's 
plays were first produced. 



THE WRITING OF ESSAYS 223 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Wliy does the writer of an essay need a desk and a library? 

2. Explain the figure of speech that compares an essay with some- 

thing that cooks slowly. 

3. Why must essays be written slowly? 

4. Why does an essayist make great use of books? 

5. Why does an essayist keep a note-book? 

6. Why is an essayist "modest with his own thoughts and tolerant 

of others"? 

7. Why does the essayist enjoy the little things of life? 

8. What is meant by "mending small habits here and there"? 

9. In what ways are many books of biography like essays? 

10. Prove that Mr. Brooks' article is an essay. 

11. Point out unusual expressions, or striking sentences. 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. The Writing of School Com- 11. A Clerk in a Store 

positions 12. A Teacher of Chemistry 

2. The Preparation of a Debate 13. Preparing an Experiment 

3. The Writing of Letters 14. The Work of a Book Agent 

4. A Pupil in School 15. Buying a Dress 

5. The Work of a Blacksmith 16. Selecting a New Hat 

6. The Leader of an Orchestra 17. Being Photographed 

7. The Cheer-Leader at a Game 18. The Senior 

8. Memorizing a Speech 19. The Freshman 

9. The Janitor of a School 20. The Alumnus 
10. The Editor of a Paper 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Your aim is to write an essay in imitation of the one written by 
Mr. Brooks. Read Mr. Brooks' essay so carefully that you will 
know just what to imitate. 

Notice how easily and how pleasantly Mr. Brooks writes, and 
especially how he makes use of figurative language rather than of 
direct statement. Then, too, he uses some very striking expressions, 
such as "He desires neither typhoon nor tempest," and "He paints 
old thoughts in shiny varnish." At the same time he uses common 
expressions now and then, as if to give a touch of familiarity or of 
humor, — "He flaps to no great heights/' "He mends small habits/' 



224 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

"Who still sat in chimney corners and babbled through their tooth- 
less gums." With it all, he gives a clear conception of the essayist 
and his work. 

Try to imitate all this in your own writing. Avoid being stiff 
and formal, and try to write easily, familiarly, originally, and with 
dignity. Remember that your aim is to give pleasure rather than 
information. 



THE RHYTHM OF PROSE 

By ABRAM LIPSKY 

(1872- ). A teacher in the high schools of the City 
of New Yoric. Among his works is a volume entitled "Old 
Testament Heroes." Dr. Lipsky writes for many publications. 

The Bhythm of Prose is a meditation on the musie of language, on 
the "tune" that accompanies thought. The essay is not severe and 
formal, — as it would be if it were a treatise on prose rhythm, — but is 
easy-going and almost conversational. It is an interesting example of 
the didactic type of essay. 

' ' Good prose is rhythmical because thought is : and thought is 
rhythmical because it is always going somewhere, sometimes strolling, 
sometimes marching, sometimes dancing." 

The rhythm of prose is inseparable from its sense. This 
sense-rhythm is abetted and supported by the mechanical 
rhythm of syllables, but its larger outlines are staked out by 
tones of interrogation, by outcries, expostulations, threats, 
entreaties, resolves, by the tones of a multitude of emotions. 
These are heard as interior voices, and have their accom- 
paniment of peculiar bodily motions, such as gritting of 
teeth, holding of breath, clenching of fists, tensions, and re- 
laxations of numberless obscure muscles. All the organs of 
the body compose the orchestra that plays the rhythm of 
prose, which is not only a rhythm, but a tune. In short, the 
really important sort of rhythm in prose is that of phrase, 
clause, and sentence, and this rhythm is marked not merely 
by stresses, but by tones, which are of as great variety as the 
modes of putting a proposition, dogmatic, hypothetical, im- 
perative, persuasive; or as the emotional tone of thought, 
solemn, jubilant, placid, mysterious. 

Good prose is rhythmical because thought is; and thought 
is rhythmical because it is always going somewhere, some- 

225 



226 MODEKN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

times strolling, sometimes marching, sometimes dancing. 
Types of thought have their characteristic rhythms, and a 
resemblance is discernible between these and types of dancing. 
Note, for example, the Oriental undulation of De Quincey,^ 
the sprightly two-stepping of Stevenson,^ the placid glide of 
Howells,^ the march of Gibbon.* A man who wishes to put the 
accent of moral authority into his style writes in a senten- 
tious, staccato rhythm. One who would appear profound 
adopts the voluminous, long-winded German period. The 
apocalyptic spirit manifests itself in a buoyant, shouting, 
leaping rhythm. Meditative calmness adopts the gliding 
movement that suggests the waltz. 

Now, why do we become uneasy the moment we suspect a 
writer of aiming at musical effects? It is because we know 
instinctively that every thought creates its own rhythm, and 
that when a writer's attention is upon his rhythm, he is bent 
upon something else than his thought processes. The only 
way of giving the impression of thought that is not original 
or spontaneous is by imitating the rhythm of that thought. 
For real meanings cannot be borrowed. They are always 
new. Eeal thought is an action, an original adventure. It 
pulsates, and the body pulsates with it. No writer can pro- 
duce this sense of original adventure in us unless he has it 
himself. 

The various classes of writers and talkers whose business 
it is to sway the minds of others understand as well as the 
medicine-man in the primitive tribe the part that rhythm 
plays in their work. The rhythm of each is characteristic. 
The swelling, pompous senatorial style that suggests the 
weight of nations behind the speaker is familiar. 



^ Thomas de Quineey (1785-1859). A celebrated English essayist, noted 
for the poetic beauty of his prose style. 

^^ Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). A great modern novelist and 
essayist whose style has both vigor and beauty of rhythm. 

^William Dean Howells (1837-1920). A modern realistic novelist and 
literary critic vs^ho wrote in a serene and quiet style. 

* Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). A great English historian, author of 
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His style is stately and 
impressive, as befits a great subject. 



THE RHYTHM OF PROSE 227 

I admit that there is an ultimate violent remedy, above the Consti- 
tution and in defiance of the Constitution, which may be resorted to 
when a revolution is to be justified. But I do not admit that, under 
the Constitution and in conformity with it, there is any mode in which 
a state government, as a member of the Union, can interfere and stop 
the progress of the general Government by force of her own laws under 
any circumstances whatever. 

Rhythm of this sort is not a matter of accented and un- 
accented syllables, but of length of phrase and suspension of 
voice as it gathers volume and momentum to break finally in 
an overwhelming roar. 

Then there is the suave, insinuating clerical style that lulls 
opposition and penetrates the conscience of the listener with 
its smooth, unhalting naivete. 

How many of us feel that those who have committed grave outward 
transgressions into which we have not fallen because the motives to 
them were not present with us, or because God's grace kept us hedged 
round by influences which resisted them — may nevertheless have had 
hearts which answered more to God 's heart, which entered far more into 
the grief and joy of His Spirit, than ours ever did. 

Or, if the preacher is of the apocalyptic variety, we get 
the explosive shocks, the hammer-blows, and the thunderous 
reverberations. 

Ah, no, this deep-hearted son of the wilderness with his burning black 
eyes and open, social, deep soul, had other thoughts in him than am- 
bition. . . . The great mystery of existence, as I said, glared in upon 
him, with its terrors, with its splendors; no hear-says could hide that 
unspeakable fact, "Here am I." 

Editorial omniscience clothes itself in a martial array of 
unwavering units. There is no quickening or slackening in 
their irresistible advance. There is no weakening in their 
ranks, nor are they subject to sudden accessions of strength. 
All is as it was in the beginning, perfect wisdom without 
flaw. 

All this is in prose what conventional meter is in verse. 
The writer sets himself a tune, which he follows. The politi- 
cal orator, the preacher, the editorial writer, the philosopher, 
the rhapsodist, knows that his writing acquires prestige from 
the class wisdom whose rhythm he chants. The reader who 



228 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

does not examine the thought too critically, but who recog- 
nizes the rhythm, is satisfied with the writer's credentials 
and bolts the whole piece. The reverence the average man 
has for print is largely due to the hypnotizing effect of its 
rhythm. 

What we find intolerable is the setting of the tune at the 
start and the grinding it out to the end. In revenge the read- 
ing world consigns the much -vaunted Sir Thomas Browne 's ^ 
"Urn Burial," De Quincey's ''Levana,"^ and Pater's^ 
famous purple patch about Mona Lisa to the rhetorical 
museums ; but it never ceases to read ' ' Robinson Crusoe, ' ' ^ 
"Pilgrim's Progress,"^ and "Gulliver's Travels,"^ and it 
devours 6. B. Shaw ^ with delight. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Explain just how prose rhythms aid in communicating thought. 

2. Show that it is perfectly natural to adapt prose rhythm to 

thought. 

3. What honesty of style does the writer demand ? 

4. Why is an artificial rhjrthm unsuccessful? 

5. Why is a continued rhythm unsuccessful? 

6. What sort of prose rhythm does Dr. Lipsky advocate? 

7. Point out figurative language in the essay? Why is it used? 

What effect does it produce? 

8. Point out conversational expressions in the essay. Why are 

they used? What effects do they produce? 

9. What advantage is gained by making references to various 

authors ? 
10. Why does the writer quote from several authors? 

"Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). A writer of essay-like books that 
are notable because of unusual beauty of phrasing and rich suggestive- 
ness of expression. 

^ Levana. One of the most poetic of Thomas De Quincey's essays. 

'Walter Pater (1839-1894). An English essayist noted for the rich- 
ness of his prose style. 

^ EoMnson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (1661-1731), and Pilgrim's 
Progress, by John Bunyan (1628-1688), are both written in plain, 
unaffected style. 

'George Bernard Shaw (1856 — ). A present-day dramatist and critic 
who adapts his style to his thought. 



THE EHYTHM OF PEOSE 



2^d 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. Public Speaking 

2. Tone in Conversation 

3. Selling Goods 

4. Style in Letter Writing 

5. The Art of Advertising 

6. Coaching a Team 

7. Style in Debating 

8. The Best Graduation Oration 

9. Newspaper Articles 
10. School Compo^tions 



11. Stories in School Papers 

12. School Editorial Articles 

13. Written Translations 

14. Laboratory Note Books 

15. The Sort of Novel I Like 

16. Good Preaching 

17. Interesting Lectures 

18. Directions 

19. Good Teaching 

20. Useful Text Books 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Think of a thesis, or statement, in which you believe strongly. 
Explain, first of all, that it is entirely natural for any one to act in 
accordance with your thesis. Illustrate your thought by making 
definite references to well-known characteristics, and by making apt 
quotations. End your work by writing a paragraph that will corre- 
spond with the last paragraph of Dr. Lipsky's essay. 



THE EEALISTIC STORY 
THE CHINAMAN'S HEAD 

By WILLIAM EOSE BENET 

(1886). Formerly with Century Magazine, and at present 
associate editor of The Literary Eeview. Contributor, par- 
ticularly of poems and humorous verse, to many magazines. 
He is the author of Merchants from Cathay; The Falconer of 
God; The Great White Wall; The Burglar of the Zodiac; 
Perpetual Light (memorial). 

Humor depends upon incongruity, exaggeration, misunderstanding, 
ignorance, the unexpected, and the use of the absurd in a thousand 
different ways. Humor that is spontaneous is always most effective. 

A good humorous story is realistic, its humor apparently created from 
within, by the characters, rather than from without, by the author. 

The Chinaman's Head is an example of the simple, humorous story. 
It gives sufficient character indication to support the incongruity, the 
misunderstanding, and the unexpected on which the humor of the story 
depends. The brevity of the story contributes to its effect. 

There must be oodles of money in it, I thought, and what 
a delightful existence, just one complication after another. I 
can imagine a beginning : "As he looked more nearly at the 
round object in the middle of the sidewalk, he discovered that 
it was the completely severed head of a Chinese laundry- 
man." There you have it at once — mystery! Gripping! 
Big ! Large ! In fact, inunense ! Then your story covers 
twenty-five chapters, in which you unravel why it was a 
Chinese laundryman and whose Chinese laundryman it was. 
Excellent ! I shall write mystery stories. 

I lit another cigarette and sat thinking of mystery. Did 
you ever realize this about mystery ? It gets more and more 
mysterious the more you think of it. It was getting too 
mysterious for me already. Just then my wife called me to 
lunch. 

"Did you ever think, my dear," I said affably as I un- 
folded my napkin and the roll in it bounced to the floor. 

230 



THE CHINAMAN'S HEAD 231 

They always do with me. It seems a rather cheap form of 
amusement, putting rolls in napkins. ' ' Did you ever think, ' ' 
I said, recovering the roll. 

"Oh, often," said my wife. 

This somewhat disconcerted me. 

"I mean," I said, accidentally ladling the cold consomme 
into my tea-cup — ' ' I mean, what would you do if you found 
a Chinaman's head on the sidewalk?" 

"Step on it," said my wife, promptly. 

It was quite unexpected. 

"I mean seriously," I said, handing her my tea-cup, which 
she refused. 

* ' I am quite serious, ' ' said my wife ; ' * but I wish you would 
watch what you are doing." 

I spent the next few minutes doing it, 

* ' I am thinking, ' ' I said gravely over my cutlet, * ' of writ- 
ing mystery -stories. " 

' ' That will be quite harmless, ' ' returned the woman I once 
loved with passion. 

I ignored her tone. 

"The mystery-story," I said, "is a money-maker. Look 
at 'Sherlock Holmes,' and look at — well, look at 'Old and 
Young King Brady'!" 

' ' All those dime novels are written by the same man, ' ' said 
my wife, unemotionally. 

''Were, my dear. I believe that man is dead now." 

"Then it 's his brother," said my wife. 

"But I am not going to descend to the dime novel," I 
went on. "I am going to write the higher type of mystery- 
story. My first story will concern the Oriental of whom I 
have spoken. It will be called 'The Chinaman's Head.' 
Don't you think it a good idea?" 

' ' But that is n 't all of it ? " the rainbow fancy of my lost 
youth questioned, at the same time making a long arm for 
the olives. 

"Of course not. There are innumerable complications. 
They — er — ^they complicate — ' ' 

"Such as?" 



232 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

"Of course," I said, "I conceived this idea just before 
lunch. I have had no time as yet to work out the mere 
detail." 

"Oh," said my lifelong penance, chewing an end of celery. 

But after lunch I sat down at my desk and began to con- 
centrate upon my complications. I wrote down some names 
of characters that occurred to me, and put them into a hat. 
Then I took them out of the hat and wrote after them the 
type of person that belonged to the name. Then I put them 
into the hat again, shook the hat, and drew them out. This 
is entirely my own invention in writing a mystery-story. The 
first name that came out was that of "Rudolph Habakkuk, 
soap manufacturer." 

It was an excellent beginning. I was immediately inter- 
ested in the story. I began it at once. 

" 'Ha!' exclaimed Rudolph Habakkuk, soap manufacturer, 
starting violently at what he saw before him upon the broad 
pavements of Fifth Avenue. The round, yellow object glis- 
tened in the oblique rays of the afternoon sun. It was a 
Chinaman's head!" 

I thought it excellent, pithy, precise. Scene, the whole 
character of one of the principal figures in the story, the crux 
of the mystery — all at a glance, as it were. And what more 
revealing than that simple, yet complete, designation, soap 
manufacturer ! I could n 't resist going into the next room 
and reading it to my wife. I said : 

"Doesn't it arouse your curiosity?" 

"Yes," said my wife, biting off a thread. "But how did it 
get there?" 

' ' What ? The Chinaman 's head ? Oh, that is the mystery. ' ' 

"I should say it was," said my wife to herself. 

I left the begrudging woman and returned to my study. I 
sat down to think about how it got there. I thought almost 
an hour about how it got there. Do you know, it quite eluded 
me ? I took my hat and overcoat and went down the street to 
talk to Theodore Rowe, who is an author of sorts. 

"Let 's hear your plot," said Theodore, giving me a ciga- 
rette and a cocktail. 



THE CHINAMAN'S HEAD 233 

"Well," I started off immediately, with decision, "you see, 
this Rudolph Habakkuk is a wealthy soap manufacturer. On 
Christmas day, when he is walking down Fifth Avenue, he is 
arres-ted — " 

"Ah," said Theodore. "Arson, or just for being a soap 
manufacturer ? ' ' 

"I did not think you would interrupt," I said solemnly. 
"He is arrested by a Chinaman's head." 

' ' Really, ' ' said Theodore, * ' don 't you think that 's drawing 
the long bow a bit? Is it 'Alice in Wonderland' or a ghost- 
story ? ' ' 

"He sees it on the pavement," I pursued as well as I 
could. "It is entirely cut off. I mean it is decapitated, you 
know. The head is decapitated. ' ' 

"Yes," answered Theodore, slowly, "I see. It would be. 
Heads get that way." 

"Well," I said, "what do you think of it?" 

' ' I have n 't heard the story yet, ' ' remarked Theo- 
dore. 

"Oh," I replied a trifle impatiently, I am afraid. "But 
that is the idea. The details are to be worked out later. 
Don 't you think it 's a striking idea ? ' ' 

"I should say so," said Theodore, rising; "almost too 
striking. Have another cocktail. They 're good for what 
ails you." 

"Thanks," I said. "But, you see, the fact is I have got a 
bit — er — perplexed about how to explain the appearance of 
the head. Possibly you could suggest ? ' ' 

"We-11," said Theodore, pursing his lips in deep thought, 
"let me see. Have you thought of the Chinaman being in a 
manhole? Only his head showing, you know." He turned 
his back on me and drew out his handkerchief. He seemed 
to have a very bad cold. 

"No," I said emphatically, "this is a severed head." 

"It might have been dropped from a ballooo — achoo!" 
gargled Theodore, his back still turned. 

"Really, Theodore," I said, rising, "thank you for the 
drinks, but I must say your mind doesn't seem to fire to a 



234 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

true mystery-story, I must have something better than that. 
I shall have to find it. ' ' 

As I was going down the front steps, Theodore opened the 
door, 

"Oh, Tuffin," he called after me, "how did he know it was 
a Chinaman?" 

"By the queue wound round the neck," I called back. It 
was rather good for an impromptu, I think. "The man had 
been murdered." 

I then found myself colliding with a policeman. He 
looked after me suspiciously. 

My wife reminded me that we were to dine at the Royles's 
that night. As I dressed I was still turning over in my mind 
the unlimited possibilities of my first mystery-story. I could 
see the colored jackets of the book, the publisher's announce- 
ments, other volumes in the same series, "The Musical 
Fingerbowls, " "The Pink Emerald," "The Green Samovar," 
"The Purple Umbrella." Imagination flamed. My wife said 
she had called me three times, but I know it was only once. 

I had expected it to be rather a dull dinner party, but 
really Mrs. Revis quite brightened it for me. She was im- 
mediately interested in my becoming an author, and she began 
to talk about Dostoyevsky. 

"Well, you know — just at first," I rejoined in modest 
deprecation of my own talents. 

"And tell me your first story. What is it to be?" She 
leaned toward me with large and shining eyes. I had a 
moment of wishing the title were not quite so sensational. 

"It is to be called 'The Chinaman's Head,' " I said, hasten- 
ing to add, "You see, it is a very deep mystery-story," 

"A-ah, mystery!" said Mrs. Revis, clasping her beautiful 
hands and gazing upward. "I adore mystery!" 

"The plot is," I said — "well, you see, there is a soap 
manufacturer — ' ' 

"A-ah, soup!" softly moaned Mrs. Revis, gazing at hers. 

"No; soap," I said. "The soap manufacturer is walking 
along Fifth Avenue — " 



THE CHINAMAN'S HEAD 235 

' ' They really should n 't allow them, ' ' exclaimed my con- 
fidante. 

"Yes, but he is — and — and he sees a Chinaman's head." 

"Where?" 

"A-ah, " I said, "that is the touch — a severed head at his 
feet!" 

Her dismay was pleasing. I had aroused her. She choked 
over her soup. 

"Tell me more!" she gasped. 

"Certainly," I said. "The— the way it got there — " 

What an infernal thing a mystery-story is! How should 
I know how it got there ! Is n 't the effect enough ? Some day 
I shall write a story entirely composed of effects. 

As I drew our Ford up at our door, my wife suddenly 
turned to me. 

"It isn't late, George, and Sam Lee is just down at the 
corner. He should have brought the laundry this afternoon. 
I entirely forgot about it, and to-morrow 's Sunday." 

"But surely they close up." 

"Oh, no; he 11 be open, Maida went for it two Saturdays 
ago at about this time. They work all night, you know. 
Please, George!" 

"Oh, all right," I said resignedly. I jogged and pulled 
things and ambled down the block. Sure enough, the laundry 
was still lighted and doing business. It always smells of 
lychee-nuts and bird's nest soup inside. The black-haired 
yellow boy grinned at me. * ' How do ! " 

I explained my errand and secured the large parcel. Sud- 
denly a thought occurred to me. The very thing! These 
Orientals were full of subtlety, I would put it to him, 

"John," I said impressively, "listen!" His name was 
Sam, but I always call them John. 

He listened attentively, watching me with beady black 
eyes. 

"John," I said, "what would you do if your head — no; I 
mean — what would you do if a soap manufacturer — no; per- 
haps we had better get at it this way. If a Chinaman 's head 
was cut off — see what I mean?" I leaned forward and 



236 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

indicated by an appropriate and time-honored gesture the 
process of decapitation. John — I mean Sam — took two steps 
hastily backward, and his eyes became pin-points. He jab- 
bered something at his friend in the rear room. 

"Now, John — I mean Sam," I said mollifyingly, "don't 
be foolish. Just come back nearer — " 

"That'll be all of that shenanigan," said a very Irish 
voice behind me. I turned, and saw the policeman with 
whom I had so nearly collided that afternoon. 

"That '11 be all, I say," remarked Roundsman Reardon, as 
I afterward found his name to be. "Sur-r, ain't yees 
ashamed of yerself, scarin' the likes o' these Chinks into the 
fright o' their shadow?" He leveled a large, pudgy finger 
at me. "An' I hear-rd ye this afternoon. I seen ye an' I 
hear-rd ye. An ' ye may be thankful I know ye by repitation 
to be har-rmless. But ye '11 come with me quiet, an' I '11 
escar-rt ye back to yer own house, an' leave the wife to put 
ye to bed. Ain't ye ashamed to be drinkin' this way an' 
makin' a sneak with the la'ndry without payin', by hopes of 
frightenin' — " 

* ' That is not true, ' ' I answered hotly, for my blood was up. 
"I intend to pay. I had forgotten." 

"Ye had forgotten," said Reardon, a whit contemptuously. 
"An' ye was askin' the China boy how he w'u'd like to be 
murthered ! ' ' 

"I will explain to you. Officer," I said in the street. "I 
am writing a story. I was merely seeking a native impres- 
sion." 

"That '11 be as it may be," said Reardon. "Ye give me 
the impression — " 

"Suppose you had yotir head cut off — " I began affably 
enough. But I got no further. 

"It is as I thought," said Reardon, gloomily. He got in 
beside me, and he helped me out at my own house, though I 
needed absolutely no assistance. He seemed to want to give 
me a bit of advice. 

"Lay off the stuff, sur-r," he said ponderously. "An' ye 
wid the fine wife you have ! " He shook his head a number 




'A-ah, mystery!" said Mrs. Revis, clasping her beautiful hands 
and gazing upward. ' ' I adore mystery ! ' ' 



THE CHINAMAN'S HEAD 237 

of times, glanced with sad resignation at my wife as she led 
me in, and departed, still shaking his head. I can't tell you 
how all that head-shaking annoyed me. 

I started awake in the middle of the night. It was un- 
believably excellent. 

' ' Jane ! " I said to my wife, * ' Jane, it 's wonderful. It 's 
come to me!" 

But Jane did not answer. 

*' Jane," I said happily, "you see, the Chinaman's head — " 

"If you say Chinaman to me again," returned my wife, 
sleepily, "I '11 leave you. There are six pieces missing from 
that laundry." 

And she never knew. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What is the character of the speaker? How does the speaker's 

personality contribute to the humor of the story? 

2. What sOrt of story did he contemplate writing? 

3. What is the character of the speaker's wife? How does her 

personality contribute to the humor of the story? 

4. What gives humor to Theodore's remarks? 

5. Why is the incident of meeting the policeman mentioned early 

in the story? 

6. What gives humor to Mrs. Revis's remarks? 

7. What misunderstandings give humor to the story? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Adventures of an Amateur 11. Conducting a Meeting 

Detective 12. Making an Excuse 

2. Going on My Travels 13. Cooking Experiences 

3. Reading Aloud at Home 14. Housecleaning 

4. A Mysterious Package 15. Buying a Dress 

5. The Lost Dog 16. Speaking a Foreign Lan- 

6. My Pet Snakes guage 

7. Writing a Composition 17. My First Speech 

8. Graduation 18. Little Brother 

9. Being an Editor 19. Being Careful 

10. Doing an Errand 20. My Letter Writing 



238 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Found your story on some actual interest that you have. Write 
in the 'first person, as realistically as possible. Do not over-use 
exaggeration, but make your story unusual. You will gain the 
best effects if you base your humor on natural misunderstanding, 
and on remarks or events that are incongruous. Confine your story 
to two or three principal incidents, and bring the narrative to a 
natural conclusion that will give the effect of climax. 



GETTING UP TO DATE 

By KOBEETA WAYNE 
An American sJiort story writer and contributor to magazines. 

A realistic story differs from a romantic story in that it concerns the 
events of ordinary life. Its characters are the people whom we know, — 
those who move about us in daily life. Its plot centers around everyday 
events. Naturally a realistic story depends largely upon character 
interest. 

Getting Up To Date concerns such a simple thing as storekeeping, and 
the methods of attracting customers. Job Lansing, in the story, rep- 
resents the type of person who clings to old ways. His niece, Ellie, 
represents the spirit of youth and progress, — the spirit of adaptability. 

The simplicity and familiarity of such a story is just as interesting 
as is wild adventure in the most vivid romance. 

Old Job Lansing stood, hatchet in hand, and stared down 
into the big packing-ease that he had just opened. 

"El-lee," he called, "come here quick." And as footsteps 
were heard and the shutting of a door, he continued: 
"They Ve sent the wrong stuff. This isn't what we or- 
dered!" 

The girl buried her head in the box from which she brought 
forth bolt after bolt of dress goods, voiles with gay colors, 
dainty organdies, and ginghams in pretty checks and plaids. 
As she rose, her eyes glowed and instinctively she straight- 
ened her shoulders. "Yes, Uncle, it is what we ordered. I 
sent for this!" 

"You did!" The old man trembled with rage. 

"But, Uncle, they 're so pretty and I think — " 

' ' You can think and think as much as you please, but those 
goods will never sell. They '11 just lie on the shelves. You 
may think they 're pretty, but an Injin won't buy a yard of 
'em, and it 's Injins we 're trading with." 

* ' But there 's no reason why the squaws should n 't buy 

239 



240 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

pretty dresses instead of ugly calico. There 's more money 
in this, and it 's a pleasure to sell such dainty stuff. Besides, 
we can sell to the white people. There 's Mrs. Matthews — " 

"I 've heard all your arguments before, and I tell you, 
you 11 never sell it." 

Old Job had never married. For many years he had lived 
alone in the rooms behind his store, and he had become self- 
centered and a bit fussy and intolerant. If he had realized 
how much his life was to be upset, he could never have 
brought himself to offer his widowed sister and her family 
a home ; for he valued his quiet life, and, above all, he wanted 
to do things in his own way. 

He was never at ease with the two nephews, who soon left 
to make their own way in the world. 

But with Ellie it was different. Her affectionate ways 
won Job's heart. They were chums, often going together on 
long horseback rides to distant peaks that looked inviting. 
And as the girl developed, he loved to have her with him as 
he worked and he was delighted at her interest in everything 
in the little store. She even learned the prices of the goods 
and helped him. 

Old Job had kept this store at the "summit" for thirty 
years, and he was sure he knew every side of the business. 
As long as he kept a good supply of beans and flour, that 
was all that was necessary. A good-sized Indian village lay 
down the creek about a mile, and it was from this settlement 
that Job Lansing got most of his trade. 

The old man had come to the age when he lived mostly in 
the past. He liked to talk of the ' ' glorious ' ' days. * ' Things 
were lively around here then," he used to say. "Why, for 
every dollar's worth I sell now, then I used to sell fifty 
dollars. They were the good old times ! ' ' 

' * But why ? ' ' questioned Ellie, bringing, him sharply back 
to the present. "There are a lot more people here now and 
we should do better." Then, with a gesture of impatience, 
' ' Uncle, there 's no sense in it. We 've got to get up to date. 
I don 't blame Joe and Glenn for leaving. There 's no future 
here." 



GETTING UP TO DATE 241 

"Shucks!" said Job Lansing. "You don't know what 
you 're talking about." 

But Ellie always managed to have the last word. "I 'm 
going to do something! See if I don't ! " 

And she had done it! 

For weeks, now, Job Lansing had been quite pleased with 
her. She had never been so reasonable. She had taken a 
great notion to cleaning up the store. Not that he approved 
of her moving the goods around; but still, it was a woman's 
way to be everlastingly fussing about with a dust-cloth. You 
could n 't change them. 

He had decided that this new interest on Ellie 's part came 
from the feeling of responsibility he had put upon her two 
months before when he had been called to Monmouth. His 
old mining partner was ill and wanted to see him. Before he 
went he gave his niece a few directions and told her how to 
make up the order for goods, that had to go out the next day. 
He rode away feeling that the business would be all right in 
her hands. 

Now, as he stormed around the store, he realized why she 
had taken such an interest in the arrangement of the shelf 
space; why a gap had been left in a prominent place. It 
was for this silly stuff that would n 't sell ! He wanted to 
send it back, but, as it had been ordered, he would have to 
pay express on it both ways. 

Ellie stood her ground, a determined expression in her 
face. She unpacked the heavy box and put the gay organdies 
and voiles in the places she had arranged for them. One 
piece, of a delicate gray with small, bright, magenta flowers 
in it, she left on the counter; and to the astonishment of the 
old man, she let a length of the dainty goods fall in graceful 
folds over a box placed beneath it. 

This was one of the notions she had brought back from 
Phoenix, where she had gone on a spring shopping trip with 
Mrs. Matthews, wife of the superintendent at the Golden 
Glow mine. How she had enjoyed that day I Her eager eyes 
noted every up-to-date detail in the big stores where they 
shopped ; but to her surprise, Mrs. Matthews had bought only 



242 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

such things as they might easily have carried in her uncle's 
store — plain, but pretty, ginghams for the Matthews children, 
a light-blue organdie for herself, a box of writing-paper, and 
a string of beads for Julie's birthday. 

EUie's pretty little head was at once filled with ideas that 
coaxed for a chance to become solid facts. Her uncle's trip 
to Monmouth gave her an opportunity, and, after weeks of 
waiting, the boxes had been delivered and the storm had 
broken. . 

When they closed the store for the night, Ellie was tired. 
She was not so sure of success as she had been. But, at least, 
she had made an effort to improve things. How she longed 
for her mother, absent on a two months' visit to one of her 
sons ! 

With the morning came new courage, even exhilaration, 
for unconsciously she was finding joy in the struggle; not 
as a diversion in the monotony and loneliness of her life, for 
Ellie did not know what monotony meant, and she felt herself 
rich in friends. She had two. 

One was Louise Prescott at Skyboro, only ten miles away, 
daughter of a wealthy ranchman. They often visited each 
other, for each had her own pony and was free to come and 
go as she wished. And the other was Juanita Mercy, down 
the caiion in the opposite direction. Now, for the last two 
years, Louise had been away at school. But she was always 
thrilled at getting back to the mountains. She had returned 
the day before, and Ellie knew that early the next morning 
she would be loping her pony over the steep road that led to 
the little mountain store. 

And it was when Ellie was standing guard over her new 
goods, fearing that her uncle might, in a moment of anger, 
order them to be sent back, that Louise rode up, and, throwing 
her reins forward over her pony's neck, leaped from the 
saddle and rushed into the store. 

' ' Oh, Ellie ! it 's good to get back, and I have four months 
of vacation. Won 't we have a grand time ! — Why, you 've 
been fixing up the store, Mr. Lansing ; and how lovely it looks ! 
I must have Mama come up and see these pretty summer 



GETTING UP TO DATE 243 

thin^." Turning again to EUie, she threw her arms around 
her and whispered: ''Come on out and sit on our dear old 
bluff. I just can't get enough of the hills to-day, and I want 
to talk and talk and talk." 

But it was not Louise who did the talking this time. While 
her eyes were feasting on the gorgeous scenery before her, the 
dim trails that led up and up the steep mountain on the other 
side of the creek, Ellie unburdened herself of her troubles. 
She told how she had ordered the goods on her own responsi- 
bility. 

"Why, Ellie, how could you do it? I 'd never have had 
the courage!" 

"But I just had to, Lou. I don't want to leave the moun- 
tains, and I don't want to be poor all our lives. Uncle 's 
getting old and set in his ways, and he can't seem to see that 
things are going behind all the time. Dear old uncle ! He 's 
been so good to us ! And now I 'd like to help him. I 'm just 
trying to save him from himself." 

' ' And you will. I think it 's fine ! ' ' 

"Yes, it 's fine, if — if — if!" exploded Ellie, who was not 
quite so optimistic as she had been in the morning. Several 
Indian women had come into the store, and while they stared 
in astonishment at the pretty goods displayed on the counter, 
they had gone out without buying anything. 

Job Lansing had shrugged his shoulders, and while not a 
word had escaped him, his manner had said emphatically, 
"I told you so!" 

"But where is there any if, I 'd like to know. You just 
have to sell all that stuff as fast as you can, and that will 
show him." 

"But if the squaws won't buy? They didn't seem wild 
about it this morning. ' ' 

' ' Well, you 're not dependent on the squaws, I should hope. 
I 'm going to tell Mother, and she 'U come up, if I say so, 
and buy a lot of dresses. ' ' 

"Now, Lou Prescott, don't you dare! That will spoil 
everything. Uncle would say it was charity. You see we 
are trading with squaws. Don 't laugh, Louise ! I must make 



244 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

good! I just must! But how am I going to make those 
squaws buy what I want them to buy ? If Uncle would only 
plan and work with me, I know we could make a success of it. 
But he won't!" 

"You should have invested in beads, reds and blues and 
greens, all colors, bright as you could get them." 

* ' That 's a good idea, Lou. I '11 do it. But they can 't buy 
a string of beads without buying a dress to match it! I '11 
do it, Lou Prescott!" 

An hour later, when they returned to the store. Job Lan- 
sing looked up from the counter, his face wrathful. He had 
just measured off six yards of pink organdie and was doing 
it up in a package for Joe Hoan's daughter. Job Lansing 
hated to give in. He had tried to get Lillie Hoan to wait 
until Ellie returned, but she had insisted, and so the old man 
was the first to sell a piece of the pretty goods. He did it 
ungraciously. 

Ellie and Louise stood still and stared at each other. Then 
Ellie whispered: "It 's a good omen. I 'm going to succeed." 

And that night a second order was dispatched. Job 
Lansing made no objection, but he did not ask her what she 
had sent for. 

The next two days were busy ones for Ellie. Her uncle 
fretted to himself, for not once did she come inside the store 
to help him, Louise came each day, and the two girls spent 
their time in Ellie 's room, where the rattling sound of the 
old sewing-machine could be heard. 

But on the third day Ellie was up early and was already 
dusting out the store when her uncle entered. It was Sat- 
urday, always a busy day. This pleased Job Lansing. ' ' That 
girl has a pile of good sense along with this other nonsense," 
he said to himself as he watched her. 

About nine o'clock Louise arrived and entered quickly, 
throwing down a square package, "Here they are. Ell, He 
brought them last night. I came right over with them, but 
I have to hurry back. They are beauties, all right. ' ' 

The girls disappeared once more into the bedroom, where 
they could be heard laughing and exclaiming. 



GETTING UP TO DATE 245 

When Ellie emerged no one would have known her, for 
the little cowboy girl was dressed in a dainty voile with 
pink blossoms in it, and around her neck was a long string 
of piak beads that matched perfectly the flowers in her 
gown. 

Job Lansing started as if he were going to speak, then 
suppressed the words and went on with his work. Ellie tried 
to act as if everything was the same as usual. Selecting some 
blues and pinks and greens among her ginghams and voiles, 
she draped them over boxes and tubs. Then across each piece 
she laid a string of beads that matched or contrasted well with 
the colors in the material, and waited for results. 

And the result was that when Joe Phinney's wife, the 
squaw who helped them in the kitchen, came in with the 
intention of buying beans and flour, she took a long look, first 
at Ellie, then at the exhibit, and without a word turned and 
left. She did not hurry, but she walked straight back to the 
Indian village. 

"Guess she was frightened," commented Job. 

Ellie was disappointed. She had depended on old Mary, 
and it was through her that she hoped to induce the other 
squaws to come. Some of them had never been in the store. 
They were shy, and left their men to do the buying. 

Their sole visitor for the next hour was Phil Jennings, the 
stage-driver, who stopped in for the mail. "Well, well, 
what 's all this about ! Are you trying to outshine the stores 
in town. Miss Ellie? And how pretty you look this morning." 

"Yes, Mr. Jennings. We 're going to have a fine store 
here by this time next year. Uncle 's thinking of enlarging 
it and putting in an up-to-date stock. On your way down, 
you might pass the word along that our summer goods are 
in and that I have some beautiful pieces here for dresses, 
just as good as can be bought in Tucson or Phoenix. It 's 
easier than sending away to Chicago." 

"Well, I sure wiU, Miss Ellie. Mother was growling the 
other day because she would have to go to Monmouth to buy 
ginghams for the kids." 

"Please tell her that next week I 'm expecting some ready- 



246 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

made clothes for children, and it will pay her to come up and 
see them." 

"I '11 tell her," said Phil Jennings, as he cracked his whip 
and started off. All he could talk about that day was "that 
clever little girl of Job Lansing's" who was going to make 
a real store at the summit and keep the mountain trade where 
it belonged. 

"Where are you, Uncle?" called Ellie, as she came back 
into the store. 

"I 'm hiding!" said Job. "Ashamed to be seen. Enlarge 
the store ! It 's more than likely I '11 have to mortgage it. 
And you drumming up trade that way. It is n 't ladylike. ' ' 

"Well, it simply has to be done. He '11 give us some good 
advertising down the road to-day. I wish there was some one 
I could send down the creek. I wonder if you couldn't ride 
down, yourself." 

But Job Lansing pretended not to hear. 

Ellie did not feel as brave as her words indicated. She 
knew that their trade from day to day came from the Indian 
settlement, and looked disconsolately out of the window. But 
in a moment she gave an exclamation of joy and found herself - 
shaking her uncle's arm, "Here they come. Uncle, dear! 
Here they come ! ' ' 

"Who? What are you talking about?" 

"The squaws! They 're here in full force. Mary, the old 
darling, she 's brought the whole tribe, I do believe!" 

Ellie busied herself at the counter, trying to appear at ease 
when the Indian women filed into the store and stood gazing 
about them. She was impatient to know if they were pleased, 
but their impassive faces told nothing. She would just have 
to let them take their time. So she pretended not to notice 
them as they drew near to the counter, fingering the beads 
and dress-goods. 

' ' How do you like my new dress, Mary ? ' ' Ellie turned on 
them suddenly. The squaws approached slowly and began 
to feel the cloth. Mary took hold of the beads and said, 
"Uh!" Then in a moment, "How much?" 

Ellie 's impulse was to throw her arms around Mary and 



GETTING UP Ta DATE 247 

hug her, but she was very dignified and grown-up as she 
answered calmly: "We don't sell the beads. They are not 
for sale!" 

"Well of all things! Not for sale!" muttered Job, as he 
slipped through the rear door into the store-room and 
slammed it vehemently. 

"They are not for sale, but we give a string of them to 
any one who buys a dress." 

Five of the squaws bought dresses, and each time a long 
string of beads was passed over. 

In the afternoon, Ellie's watchful eyes caught the first 
glimpse of them as the same squaws, accompanied by others, 
rounded the cui've in the path and came single file up the 
steep short-cut to the store. 

Ellie counted her profits that night and was satisfied. Still, 
there were some twenty or twenty-five squaws in the settle- 
ment who had never been inside the store, and she made up 
her mind that they must be persuaded to come. 

The next week a large packing-case arrived. Ellie was the 
one to wield the hatchet this time, for her uncle was still in 
an ungracious mood. The box was larger than she expected, 
but this was explained when it was opened. Two large dolls 
were inside — one with curlj'^ short hair and boyish face, and 
the other a real "girly" doll. A letter explained that with 
an order for children's ready-to-wear clothes it might be an 
advantage to have dolls on which to display them. 

"I wonder!" said Ellie, to herself. "Look here, Uncle," 
she called, as the old man came into the store; "see what 
they 've sent me ! Look at these pink and white dolls, when 
we 're trading with Indians. Isn't it a joke?" 

"A coat of brown paint is what you want," said old Job, 
laughing a cynical laugh. 

"You 've hit it. Uncle! You certainly have dandy ideas! 
I should n 't have thought of it. ' ' 

Then in a moment he heard her at the telephone giving a 
number. It was the Prescott ranch. "Hello, is that you, 
Louise? Can you come up to-day? I need you. All right. 
And Lou, bring your oil paints. It 's very important." 



248 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

It was with much giggling and chattering that the two 
girls began their transformation of the pink-and-white dolls. 
Their bisque faces were given a thin coating of brown paint. 
The old man watched them from across the store and almost 
gasped as he saw them rip off the wigs. Then they retreated 
to the kitchen. He was so curious that he made several trips 
to the door and peeked through a crack. 

What he saw was the two girls bending over a pot on the 
stove, which they were stirring furiously. Once in a while 
Ellie raised the stick with something black on the end, and 
finally the two dripping dolls' wigs were hung over the stove 
to dry. Of course the boiling had taken all the curl out of 
the hair, but that was what they wanted, for the two dolls 
were now brown-faced, dark-haired figures. They were ar- 
rayed in the ready-to-wear clothes, and the girls stood back 
to survey them. 

' ' They look fine, Ellie ! That is, yours does ; but my girl 
here doesn't look quite right." 

Job Lansing was pretending to be busy. He turned and 
at once broke into a roar of laughter. "Well, when did you 
ever see a blue-eyed Injin?" 

* ' Oh that 's it, Ellie. Your doll had brown eyes, but mine 
are blue. What shall we do? It looks silly this way." 

' ' Paint 'em black ! ' ' chuckled the old man. 

"Of course!" said Ellie. Then in a tone loud enough to 
carry across the store, " Is n 't Uncle quick to notice things ? ' ' 
Ellie meant him to hear what she said, but she was none the 
less sincere, for she did have a high regard for her uncle's 
ability. She had said to Louise often in the last few days, 
"When I get Uncle started, there '11 be no stopping him." 
Still, the remark had been sent forth with a purpose. 

Job Lansing gave the girl a quick glance. She was daubing 
brown paint on the girl-doll's eyes. He was pleased by her 
praise and no less by her readiness to take his advice. 

The little dresses and suits sold quickly. Mrs. Matthews 
bought a supply, and told others about them. 

But they were mostly white women who purchased these 
things; and while Ellie was glad to get their trade, she still 




'Isn't this great! They 're here, every one of them! 
awfully good to let us use the phonograph 



You 're 



GETTING UP TO DATE 249 

had the fixed idea that she must get the squaws in the habit 
of coming in to do their own shopping. 

The quick sale of the new goods made a deep impression 
on Job Lansing, and he seemed especially pleased at the sales 
made to the white women at the mines. One morning he ap- 
proached his niece with the suggestion that she had better 
keep her eyes open and find out what the women around the 
mountains needed. Ellie had been doing this for weeks. She 
had a big list made out already, but she saw no need of telling 
her uncle. She looked up, her face beaming. 

"That 's a capital idea. Uncle, I think we might just as 
well sell them all their supplies." Ellie was exultant. She 
knew her troubles were over, that her plan was working out. 

Still, she wasn't quite satisfied. A few of the shy squaws 
had been induced to come up and look at things from the 
outside, peering into the shop through the door and windows. 
But there were probably twenty who had not been in the 
store. If only she could persuade them to come once, there 
would be no more trouble. 

The final stroke which brought the Indians, both men and 
women, into the store was a bit of good luck. Ellie called it 
a miracle. 

It was after a very heavy rain-storm in the mountains that 
Jennings, the stage-driver, shouted to her one evening: "Do 
you mind if I leave a big box here for young Creighton over 
at the Scotia mine? The road 's all washed out by Camp 3, 
and I don't dare take this any farther. It 's one of those 
phonygrafts that makes music, you know. And say, Miss 
Ellie, will you telephone him that it 's here?" 

"Yes," answered Ellie, in an absent-minded way. "I '11 
telephone him. She was still half dreaming as she heard 
young Creighton 's voice at the other end of the line, but at 
once she became eager and alert. ' ' I want to ask a favor of 
you, Mr. Creighton? Your phonograph is here. They can't 
take it up on account of the washout. May I open it and 
play on it. I '11 make sure that it is boxed up again care- 
fully." 

"Why, certainly, Miss Ellie! I '11 be glad to have you 



250 MODEKN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

enjoy the music. The records and everything are in the box. 
Perhaps I '11 come over and hear it myself." 

The next evening, about eight o'clock, Will Creighton ar- 
rived on horseback, and found such a throng of Indians close 
about the door that he had to go in by the kitchen. He heard 
the strains of the phonograph music and had no need to ask 
the cause of the excitement. All the squaws were inside the 
store. Occasionally one would extend a hand and touch the 
case or peer into the dark box, trying to discover where the 
sound came from. 

Creighton approached Ellie, who was changing a needle. 
She turned her flushed face to him with a smile. "Is n't this 
great ! They 're here, every one of them ! You 're awfully 
good to let us use the phonograph. I 've ordered one like it 
for ourselves. These blessed squaws do enjoy music so 
much ! ' ' 

Job Lansing was standing near the machine, enjoying it 
as much as any one. A new record had been put on, the 
needle adjusted, and the music issued forth from that mys- 
terious box. It was one of those college songs, a "laughing" 
piece. And soon old Job was doubled over, with his enjoy- 
ment of it. The squaws drew closer together. At first they 
scowled, for they thought that the queer creature in the 
polished case was laughing at them. Then one began to 
giggle, and soon another and finally the store was filled with 
hysterical merriment. Sometimes it would stop for a mo- 
ment, and then, as the sounds from the phonograph could be 
heard, it would break forth again. 

Ellie stood for hours, playing every record four or five 
times, and when she finally shut up the box, as a sign that 
the concert was over, the taciturn Indians filed silently out 
of the store and went home without a word. 

But the girl knew that they would return. She had won! 

Another triumph was hers when the springtime came 
again. One day her uncle approached her and hesitatingly 
said, "Ellie, we 're going to be awfully cramped when our 
new summer goods arrive. Guess I 'd better have Hoan ride 
over and give me an estimate on an addition to the store." 



GETTING UP TO DATE 



251 



Ellie suppressed the desire to cry out, "I told you so!" 
Instead she said very calmly : ' * Why, that 's a fine idea, Uncle. 
Business is picking up, and it would be nice to have more 
room. I 'm glad you thought of it." 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Why does the story begin so abruptly? 

2. What is the character of Job Lansing? 

3. What is the character of Ellie? 

4. How does the author explain that Ellie has views that do not 

harmonize with her uncle's views? 

5. What advantage does the author gain from the setting of the 

story? 

6. How does the author make the story seem real? 

7. Why did the author introduce subordinate characters? 

8. Divide the story into its component incidents. 

9. At what point is the reader's interest greatest? 

10. At what point is Ellie's success certain? 

11. Which incident has the greatest emphasis? 

12. How does the author make Ellie the principal character? 

13. What is the effect of the quick conclusion? 

14. How does the author make use of conversation as a means of 

telling events? 

15. On what one idea is the story founded? 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. Re-Arranging the House 

2. Fixing Up the Office 

3. Increasing Sales 

4. The New Clerk 

5. The Old Store Made New 

6. Our Dooryard 

7. A Back- Yard Garden 

8. Making Over the Library 

9. Father's Stable 



11. Our Piazza 

12. The Flower Garden 

13. Selling Hats 

14. Building Up Trade 

15. Father's Desk 

16. Making Study Easy 

17. Making a Happy Kitchen 

18. A Successful Charity Fair 

19. The Window Dresser 



10. Decorating the School Room 20. A Good Advertisement 



252 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Write about a subject with which you are familiar, and with 
which your readers are familiar. Make your principal character a 
young person. Make your story concern the contrast of two 
methods of accomplishment, one of which will represent the old 
and least successful method; the other, the new and more successful. 
Write a series of three or four briefly told incidents that will lead 
to a climax. Make free use of conversation. Notice that the author 
of Getting Up to Date has left out much that might have been said, 
and has thereby made the story crisp and emphatic. Make your 
own story condensed and to the point. Pay particular attention to 
writing a strong ending. 



THE LION AND THE MOUSE 

By JOSEPH B. AMES 

(1878 — ). 'An American engineer and author. After his 
graduation from Stevens Institute Mr. Ames at first devoted 
himself entirely to engineering. He has been prominent in 
promoting the work of the Boy Scouts. Among his books are 
the following : The Mystery of Ram Island ; Curly of the Circle 
Bar; Curly and the Aztee Gold; Pete the Cowpuncher; Under 
Boy Scout Colors; Shoe-Bar Stratton; The Emerald Buddha. 

Eealism and romance may be combined in a story of school life as 
well as in a story of any other kind. The Lion and the Mouse tells, in 
part, of ordinary, everyday events, and in part, of events that are 
distinctly out of the ordinary. The characters are the characters of 
school life, — two boys of entirely different natures but, after all, one 
at heart, — and subordinate characters who belong in the realm of real 
life. Many of the events of the story are commonplace enough. On 
this basis of reality there has been founded a story of quick event, a 
story of the unusual, entirely probable, centering around character and 
character development. 

Big Bill Hedges scowled out of the locker-room window 
and groaned softly. There was something about that wide, 
unbroken sweep of snow which affected him disagreeably. If 
only it had been crisscrossed by footprints, or the tracks of 
snow-shoes or toboggans, he wouldn't have minded it nearly 
so much. But there it lay, flat, white, untrodden, drifting 
over low walls and turning the clumps of shrubbery into 
shapeless mounds. And of a sudden he found himself hating 
it almost as much as the dead silence of the endless, empty 
rooms about him. For it was the fourth day of the Christmas 
vacation, and, save the kitchen staff, there were only two other 
human beings in this whole great barracks of a place. 

"And neither of them is really human," grunted Hedges, 
turning restlessly from the window. 

With a disgusted snort he recalled the behavior of those 
two, whom so far he had met only at meal-time. Mr. Wilson, 

253 



254 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

the tutor left in charge of the school, consumed his food in a 
preoccupied sort of daze, rousing himself at rare intervals 
to make some plainly perfunctory remark. He was writing 
some article or other for the magazines, and it was all too 
evident that the subject filled his waking hours. And ' ' Plug" 
Seabury, with his everlasting book propped up against a 
tumbler, was even worse. But then Hedges had never ex- 
pected anything from him. 

Crossing to his locker, the boy pulled out a heavy sweater, 
stared at it dubiously for a moment, and then let it dangle 
from his relaxed fingers. For once the thought of violent 
physical exertion in the open failed to arouse the least en- 
thusiasm. Ever since the departure of the fellows, he had 
skeed and snow-shoed and tramped through the drifts — 
alone ; and now the monotony was getting on his nerves. He 
flung the sweater back, and, slamming the locker door, strolled 
aimlessly out of the room. 

One peep into the cold, lofty, empty ''gym" effectually 
quelled his half -formed notion of putting in an hour or two on 
the parallel bars. "I 'm lonesome!" he growled; "just — 
plumb — lonesome! It 's the first time I 've ever wished I 
did n 't live in Arizona. ' ' 

But the thought of home and Christmas cheer and all the 
other vanished holiday delights was not one to dwell on now ; 
he tried instead to appreciate how absurd it would have been 
to spend eight of his twelve holidays on the train. 

A little further dawdling ended in his turning toward the 
library. He was not in the least fond of reading. Life 
ordinarily, with its constant succession of outdoor and indoor 
sports and games, was much too full to think of wasting time 
with a book unless one had to. But the thought occurred to 
him that to-day it might be a shade better than doing abso- 
lutely nothing. 

Opening the door of the long, low-ceiled, book-lined room, 
which he had expected to find as desolately empty as the rest, 
he paused in surprise. On the brick hearth a log fire burned 
cheerfully, and curled up in an easy chair close to the hearth, 
was the slight figure of Paul Seabury. 



THE LION AND THE MOUSE 255 

' ' Hello ! ' ' said Hedges, gruffly, when he had recovered from 
his surprise. "You 've sure made yourself comfortable." 

Seabury gave a start and raised his head. For a moment 
his look was veiled, abstracted, as if his mind still lingered 
on the book lying open in his lap. Then recognition slowly 
dawned, and a faint flush crept into his face. 

"The — the wood was here, and I — I didn't think there 'd 
be any harm in lighting it," he said, thrusting back a strag- 
gling lock of brown hair. 

"I don't s'pose there is," returned Hedges, shortly. Un- 
consciously, he was a little annoyed that Seabury should seem 
so comfortable and content. "I thought you were upstairs." 

He dragged a chair to the other side of the hearth and 
plumped down in it. "What you reading?" he asked. 

Seabury 's eyes brightened. "Treasure Island," he an- 
swered eagerly. "It 's awfully exciting. I 've just got to 
the place where — " 

"Never read it," interrupted the big fellow, indifferently. 
Lounging back against the leather cushions, he surveyed the 
slim, brown-eyed, rather pale-faced boy with a sort of con- 
temptuous curiosity. "Do you read all the time?" he asked. 

Again the blood crept up into Seabury 's thin face and his 
lids drooped. "Why, no — not all the time," he answered 
slowly. "But — but just now there 's nothing else to do." 

Hedges grunted. "Nothing else to do! Gee-whiz! Don't 
you ever feel like going for a tramp or something? I s'pose 
you can 't snow-shoe, or skee, but I should n 't think you 'd 
want to stay cooped up in the house all the time. 

A faint, nervous smile curved the boy 's sensitive lips. * ' Oh, 
I can skee and snow-shoe all right, but — " He paused, 
noticing the incredulous expression which Hedges was at no 
pains to hide. "Everybody does, where I live in Canada," 
he explained, "often it 's the only way to get about." 

"Oh, I see." Hedges' tone was no longer curt, and a 
sudden look of interest had flashed into his eyes. ' ' But don 't 
you like it ? Does n 't this snow make you want to go out and 
try some stunts?" 

Seabury glanced sidewise through the casement windows 



256 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

at the sloping, drifted field beyond. "N — no, I can't say it 
does," he confessed hesitatingly; "it 's such a beastly, rotten 
day." 

His interest in Plug's unexpected accomplishments made 
Hedges forbear to comment scornfully on such weakness." 

"Rotten!" he repeated. "Why, it 's not bad at all. It's 
stopped snowing." 

"I know; but it looks as if it would start in again any 
minute. ' ' 

* * Shucks ! ' ' sniffed Hedges. ' ' A little snow won 't hurt you. 
Come ahead out and let 's see what you can do." 

Seabury hesitated, glancing with a shiver at tlie cold, white 
field outside and back to the cheerful fire. He did not feel 
at all inclined to leave his comfortable chair and this en- 
thralling book. On the other hand, he was curiously un- 
willing to merit Bill Hedges' disapproval. From the first 
he had regarded this big, strong, dominating fellow with a 
secret admiration and shy liking which held in it no touch 
of envy or desire for emulation. It was the sort of admira- 
tion he felt for certain heroes in his favorite books. When 
Hedges made some spectacular play on the gridiron or pulled 
off an especially thrilling stunt on the hockey-rink, Seabury, 
watching inconspicuously from the side-lines, got all hot and 
cold and breathlessly excited. But he was quite content that 
Hedges should be doing it and not himself. Sometimes, to be 
sure, he wondered what it would be like to have such a person 
for a friend. But until this moment Hedges had scarcely 
seemed aware of his existence, and Seabury was much too 
shy to make advances, even when the common misfortune of 
too-distant homes had thrown them together in the isolation 
of the empty school. 

"I — I haven't any skees," he said at length. 

Hedges sprang briskly to his feet. ' ' That 's nothing. I '11 
fix you up. We can borrow Marston's. Come ahead." 

Swept along by his enthusiasm, Seabury closed his book 
and followed him out into the corridor and down to the locker 
room. Here they got out sweaters, woolen gloves and caps, 
and Hedges calmly appropriated the absent Marston's skees. 



THE LION AND THE MOUSE 257 

Emerging finally into the open, Seabury shivered a little as 
the keen, searching wind struck him. It came from the 
northeast, and there was a chill, penetrating quality about it 
which promised more snow, and that soon. By the time 
Seabury had adjusted the leather harness to his feet and 
resumed his gloves, his fingers were blue and he needed no 
urging to set off at a swift pace. 

In saying that he could skee, the boy had not exaggerated. 
He was, in fact, so perfectly at home upon the long, smooth, 
curved-up strips of ash, that he moved with the effortless ease 
and grace of one scarcely conscious of his means of locomo- 
tion. Watching him closely. Hedges' expression of critical 
appraisement changed swiftly to one of unqualified approval. 

"You 're not much good on them, are you?" he commented. 
* ' I suppose you can jump any old distance and do aU sorts of 
fancy stunts." 

Seabury laughed. He was warm again and beginning to 
find an unwonted pleasure in the swift, gliding motion and 
the tingling rush of frosty air against his face. 

** Nothing like that at all," he answered. "I can jump 
some, of course, but I 'm really not much good at anything 
except just straight-away going." 

* * Huh ! ' ' grunted Hedges, sceptically. * ' I '11 bet you could 
run circles around any of the fellows here^ Well, what do 
you say to taking a little tramp. I 've knocked around the 
grounds till I 'm sick of them. Let 's go up Hogan Hill," 
he added, with a burst of inspiration. 

Seabury promptly agreed, though inwardly he was not 
altogether thrilled at the prospect of such a climb. Hogan 
Hill rose steeply back of the school. A few hay-fields ranged 
along its lower level, but above them the timber growth was 
fairly thick, and Paul knew from experience that skeeing on 
a wooded slope was far from easy. 

As it turned out. Hedges had no intention of tackling the 
steep slope directly. He knew of an old wood-road which led 
nearly to the summit by more leisurely twists and curves, and 
it was his idea that they take this as far as it went and then 
skee down its open, winding length. 



258 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

By the time they were half-way up, Seabury was pretty 
well blown. It was the first time he had been on skees in 
nearly a year, and his muscles were soft from general lack 
of exercise. He made no complaint, however, and presently 
Hedges himself proposed a rest. 

* ' I wish I could handle the things as easily as you do, ' ' he 
commented. ''I work so almighty hard that I get all in a 
sweat, while you just glide along as if you were on skates. ' ' 

''I may glide, but I haven't any wind left," confessed 
Seabury. "It 's only practice you know. I 've used them 
ever since I was a little kid, and compared to some of the 
fellows up home, I 'm nowhere. Do you think we ought to 
go any farther? I felt some snow on my face just then." 

"Oh, sure!" said Hedges, bluffly. "A little snow won't 
hurt us, anyhow, and we can skee down in no time at all. 
Let 's not go back just yet. ' ' 

Presently they started on again, and though Seabury kept 
silent, he was far from comfortable in his mind. He had had 
more than one unpleasant experience with sudden winter 
storms. It seemed to him wiser to turn back at once, but he 
was afraid of suggesting it again lest Hedges think him a 
quitter. 

A little later, still mounting the narrow, winding trail, they 
came upon a rough log hut, aged and deserted, with a sagging, 
half -open door; but the two boys, unwilling to take off their 
skees, did not stop to investigate it. 

Every now and then during the next half mile trifling little 
gusts of stinging snowflakes whirled down from the leaden 
sky, beat against their faces, and scurried on. Seabury 's 
feeling of nervous apprehension increased, but Hedges, in his 
careless, self-confident manner merely laughed and said that 
the trip home would be all the more interesting for little 
diversions of that sort. 

The words were scarcely spoken when, from the distance, 
there came a curious, thin wailing of the wind, rising swiftly 
to a dull, ominous roar. Startled, both boys stopped abruptly, 
and stared up the slope. And as they did so, something like 



THE LION AND THE MOUSE 259 

a vast, white, opaque curtain surged over the crest of the hill 
and swept swiftly toward them. 

Almost before they could draw a breath it was upon them, 
a dense, blinding mass of snow, which whirled about them in 
choking masses and blotted out the landscape in a flash. 

' ' Wough ! ' ' gasped Hedges. ' ' Some speed to that ! I guess 
we 'd better beat it, kid, while the going 's good. ' ' 

But even Hedges, with his easy, careless confidence, was 
swiftly forced to the realization that the going was very far 
from good even then. It was impossible to see more than a 
dozen yards ahead of them. As a matter of course, the older 
fellow took the lead, but he had not gone far before he ran 
off the track and only saved himself from a spill by grabbing 
a small tree. 

"Have to take it easy," he commented, recovering his 
balance. "This storm will let up soon; it can't possibly last 
long this way." 

Seabury made no answer. Shaking with nervousness, he 
could not trust himself to speak. 

Regaining the trail. Hedges started off again, cautiously 
enough at first. But a little success seemed to restore his 
confidence, and he began to use his staff as a brake with less 
and less frequency. They had gone perhaps a quarter of a 
mile when a sudden heavier gust of stinging flakes momen- 
tarily blinded them both. Seabury instantly put on the 
brake and almost stopped. When he was able to clear his 
eyes. Hedges was out of sight. An instant later there came 
a sudden crash, a startled, muffled cry, and then — silence ! 

Horrified, Seabury instantly jerked his staff out of the snow 
and sped forward. At first, he could barely see the tracks 
of his companion's skees, but presently the storm lightened 
a trifle and of a sudden he realized what had happened. 
Hedges had misjudged a sharp curve in the trail and, instead 
of following it, had plunged off to one side and do%vn a steep 
declivity thickly grown with trees. At the foot of this little 
slope Seabury found him lying motionless, a twisted heap, 
face downward in the snow. 



260 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

Sick with horror, the boy bent over that silent figure. 
"Bill!" he cried, "what has—" 

His voice died in a choking sob, but a moment later his 
heart leaped as Hedges stirred, tried to rise, and fell back 
with a stifled groan. 

"It 's — my ankle," he mumbled, "I — I 've — turned it. 
See if you can't — " 

With shaking fingers, Seabury jerked at the buckles of his 
skees and stepped out of them. Hedges' left foot was twisted 
under him, and the front part of his skee was broken off. 
As Paul freed the other's feet from their encumbering straps, 
Bill made a second effort to rise, but his face turned quite 
white and he sank back with a grunt of pain. 

"Thunder!" he muttered. "I — I believe it 's sprained." 

For a moment or two he sat there, face screwed up, arms 
gripping his knees. Then, as his head cleared, he looked up 
at the frightened Seabury, a wry smile twisting the corners of 
his mouth. 

"I 'm an awful nut, kid," he said. "I forgot that curve 
and was going too fast to pull up. Reckon I deserve that 
crack on the head and all the rest of it for being so aw- 
fully cocky. Looks as if we were in rather a mess, does n 't 
it?" 

Seabury nodded, still unable to trust himself to speak. 
But Hedges' coolness soothed his jangled nerves, and pres- 
ently a thought struck him. 

"That cabin back there!" he exclaimed. "If we could 
only manage to get that far — " 

He paused and the other nodded. "Good idea," he agreed 
promptly. "I 'm afraid I can't walk it, but I might be able 
to crawl." 

"Oh, I didn't mean that. If we only had some way of 
fastening my skees together, you could lie down on them and 
I could pull you." 

A gleam of admiration came into the older chap's dark 
eyes. "You 've got your nerve with you, old man," he said. 
"Do you know how much I weigh?" 

* ' That does n 't matter, ' ' protested Seabury. "It 's all 



THE LION AND THE MOUSE 261 

down hill ; it would n 't be so hard. Besides, we can 't stay 
here or — or we '11 freeze." 

"Now you 've said something," agreed Hedges. 

And it was true. Already Seabury 's teeth were chattering, 
and even the warmer blooded Hedges could feel the cold pene- 
trating his thick sweater. He tried to think of some other 
way out of their predicament, but finally agreed to try the 
plan. His heavy, high shoes were laced with rawhide thongs, 
which sufficed roughly to bind the two skees together. There 
was no possibility, however, of pulling them. The only way 
they could manage was for Hedges to seat himself on the 
improvised toboggan while Seabury trudged behind and 
pushed. 

It was a toilsome and painful method of progress for them 
both and often jolted Hedges' ankle, which was already badly 
swollen, bringing on a constant succession of sharp, keen 
stabs. Seabury, wading knee-deep in the snow, was soon 
breathless, and by the time they reached the cabin, he felt 
utterly done up. 

' ' Could n 't have kept that up much longer, ' ' grunted 
Hedges, when they were inside the shelter with the door 
closed against the storm. 

His alert gaze traveled swiftly around the bare interior. 
There was a rough stone chimney at one end, a shuttered 
window at the back, and that was all. Snow lay piled up on 
the cold hearth, and here and there made little ridges on the 
logs where it had filtered through the many cracks and 
crevices. Without the means of making fire, it was not much 
better than the out-of-doors, and Hedges' heart sank as he 
glanced at his companion, leaning exhausted against the wall. 

"It 's sure to stop pretty soon," he said presently, with a 
confidence he did not feel. "When it lets up a little, we 
might — " 

"I don't believe it 's going to let up." Seabury straight- 
ened with an odd, unwonted air of decision. ' ' I was caught 
in a storm like this two years ago and it lasted over two 
days. We 've got to do something, and do it pretty quick." 

Hedges stared at him, amazed at the sudden transforma- 



262 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

tion. He did not understand that a long-continued nervous 
strain will sometimes bring about strange reactions. 

"You 're not thinking of pushing me all the way down the 
road, are you?" he protested. "I don't believe you could 
do it." 

"I don't believe I could, either," agreed the other, frankly, 
"But I could go down alone and bring back help." 

' ' Gee-whiz ! You — you mean skee down that road ? Why, 
it 's over three miles, and you ' d miss the trail a dozen times. ' ' 

"I shouldn't try the road," said Seabury, quietly. His 
face was pale, but there was a determined set to the delicate 
chin. "If I went straight down the hill back of this cabin, 
I 'd land close to the school, and I don't believe the whole 
distance is over half a mile." 

Hedges gasped. ' ' You 're crazy, man ! Why, you 'd kill 
yourself in the first hundred feet trying to skee through 
those trees." 

"I don't think so. I 've done it before — some. Besides, 
most of the slope is open fields. I noticed that when we 
started out." 

"But they 're steep as the dickens, with stone walls, and — " 

Seabury cut short his protests by buttoning his collar 
tightly about his throat and testing the laces of his shoes. 
He was afraid to delay lest his resolution should break down. 

"I 'm going," he stated stubbornly; "and the sooner I 
get off, the better." 

And go he did, with a curt farewell which astonished and 
bewildered his companion who had no means of knowing that 
it was a manner assumed to hide a desperate fear and ner- 
vousness. As the door closed between them, Seabury 's lips 
began to tremble; and his hands shook so that he could 
scarcely tighten up the straps of his skees. 

Back of the cabin, poised at the top of the slope, with the 
snow whirling around him and the unknown in front, he had 
one horrible moment of indecision when his heart lay like 
lead within him and he was on the verge of turning back. 
But with a tremendous effort he crushed down that almost 
irresistible impulse. He could not bear the thought of facing 



THE LION AND THE MOUSE 263 

Hedges, an acknowledged coward and a quitter. An instant 
later a thrust of his staff sent him over the edge, to glide 
downward through the trees with swiftly increasing mo- 
mentum. 

Strangely enough, he felt somehow that the worst was over. 
To begin with, he was much too occupied to think of danger, 
and after he had successfully steered through the first hun- 
dred feet or so of woods, a growing confidence in himself 
helped to bolster up his shrinking spirit. After all, save for 
the blinding snow, this was no worse than some of the descents 
he had made of wooded slopes back there at home. If the 
storm did not increase, he believed that he could make it. 

At first he managed, by a skilful use of his staff, to hold 
himself back a little and keep his speed within a reasonable 
limit. But just before he left the woods, the necessity for 
a sudden side-turn to avoid a clump of trees through which 
he could not pass nearly flung him off his balance. In strug- 
gling to recover it, the end of his staff struck against another 
tree and was torn instantly from his grasp. 

His heart leaped, then sank sickeningly, but there was no 
stopping now. A moment later he flashed out into the open, 
swerved through a gap in the rough, snow-covered wall, and 
shot down the steep incline with swiftly increasing speed. 

His body tense and bent slightly forward, his straining 
gaze set unwaveringly ahead, striving to pierce the whirling, 
beating snow, Seabury felt as if he were flying through the 
clouds. On a clear day, with the ability to see what lay 
before him, there would have been a rather delightful ex- 
hilaration in that descent. But the perilous uncertainty of 
it all kept the boy's heart in his throat and chained him in 
a rigid grip of cold fear. 

Long before he expected it, the rounded, snow-covered bulk 
of a second wall seemed to leap out of the blinding snow- 
curtain and rush toward him. Almost too late, he jumped, 
and, soaring through the air, struck the declining slope again 
a good thirty feet beyond. 

In the lightning passage of that second field, he tried to 
figure where he was coming out and what obstacles he might 



264 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

encounter, but the effort was fruitless. He knew that the 
highroad, bordered by a third stone wall, ran along the foot 
of the hill, with the school grounds on the other side. But 
the speed at which he was traveling made consecutive thought 
almost impossible. 

Again, with that same appalling swiftness, the final barrier 
loomed ahead. He leaped, and, at the very take-off, a gasp 
of horror was jolted from his lips by the sight of a two-horse 
sledge moving along the road directly in his path ! 

It was all over in a flash. Helpless to avoid the collision, 
Seabury nevertheless twisted his body instinctively to the 
left. He was vaguely conscious of a monstrous looming bulk ; 
of a startled snort which sent a wave of hot breath against 
his face, and the equally startled yell of a human voice. The 
next instant he landed badly, his feet shot out from under 
him, and he fell backward with a stunning crash. 

His first conscious observation was of two strange faces 
bending over him and of hands lifting him from where he 
lay half buried in the snow. For a moment he was too dazed 
to speak or even to remember. Then, with a surging rush of 
immense relief, he realized what had happened, and gaining 
speech, he poured out a hurried but fairly coherent account 
of the situation. 

His rescuers proved to be woodsmen, perfectly familiar 
with the Hogan Hill trail and the old log-cabin. Seabury 's 
skees were taken off and he was helped into the sledge and 
driven to the near-by school. Stiff and sore, but otherwise 
unhurt, he wanted to go with them, but his request was 
firmly refused ; and pausing only long enough to get some 
rugs and a heavy coat, the pair set off. Little more than two 
hours later they returned with the injured Hedges, who was 
carried at once to the infirmary to be treated for exposure 
and a badly sprained ankle. 

His rugged constitution responded readily to the former, 
but the ankle proved more stubborn, and he was ordered by 
the doctor not to attempt even to hobble around on it for at 
least a week. As a result, Christmas dinner had to be eaten 
in bed. But somehow Hedges did not mind that very much, 





At the very take-off, a gasp of horror was jolted from his lips 



THE LION AND THE MOUSE 265 

for Paul Seabury shared it, sitting on the other side of a 
folding table drawn up beside the couch. 

Having consumed everything in sight and reached that 
state of repletion without which no Christmas dinner may be 
considered really perfect, the two boys relapsed for a space 
into a comfortable, friendly sort of silence. 

"Not much on skees, are you?" commented Hedges, pres- 
ently, glancing quizzically at his companion. 

Seabury flushed a little. "I wish you wouldn't," he 
protested. "If you had any idea how scared I was, and — • 
and — Why, the whole thing was just pure luck." 

Hedges snorted. "Bosh! You go tell that to your grand- 
mother. There 's one thing, ' ' he added ; " as soon as I 'm 
around again, you 've got to come out and give me some 
points. I thought I was fairly decent on skees, but I guess 
after all I 'm pretty punk." 

"I '11 show you anything I can, of course," agreed Sea- 
bury, readily. He paused an instant and then went on 
hesitatingly : ' ' I — I ' m going to do a lot more of that sort 
of thing from now on. It — it was simply disgusting the way 
I got winded so soon and all tired out." 

"Sure," nodded Hedges, promptly. "That 's what I 've 
always said. You ought to take more exercise and not mope 
around by yourself so much. But we '11 fix that up all right 
from now on," He paused. " Are n 't you going to read some 
more in 'Treasure Island'?" he asked expectantly. "That 's 
some book, believe me ! Wliat with you and that and every- 
thing, I 'm not going to mind being laid up at all. ' ' 

Seabury made no comment, but as he reached for the book 
and found their place, the corners of his mouth curved with 
the beginnings of a contented, happy smile. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. What is the character of Bill Hedges'? 

2. What is the character of "Ping" Seabury? 

3. Why are both boys at the school in vacation time? 

4. What bad been the past life of each boy? 

5. What had been their feeling for each other? 



266 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

6. What change does the story make in their feeling for each other? 

7. How does the author make the story seem probable? 

8. Show how the author leads to the climax of the story. 

9. Divide the story into its most important incidents. 

10. Show that the author is consistent in character presentation. 

11. How does the author make the climax powerful in effect? 

12. What makes the conclusion effective? 

13. What use does the author make of conversation? 

14. What is the proportion of description and explanation in the 

story? 

15. What are the good characteristics of the story? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. A Simamer Adventure 11. The Fire in School 

2. At Easter Time 12. An Unexpected Hero 

3. The Swimming Match 13. Tony's Brother 

4. A Cross Coimtry Adventure 14. Skating on the River 

5. The Lost Books 15. The Bicycle Meet 

6. The School Bully 16. At the Sea Shore 

7. The Hiding Place 17. The Trip to the Woods 

8. An Excursion 18. The Surprise of the Day 

9. The Little Freshman 19. The Best Batter 

10. Our Election Day 20. How We Found a Captain 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Write a story that will be closely connected with school life. Use 
the ordinary characters that are to be found in your school, but use 
typical characters that will sum up well-recognized characteristics. 
Base your story upon any sharp contrast in characters. Begin 
your story by telling of eveiyday events, but make those events lead 
quickly to events that are out of the ordinary. In like manner begin 
with familiar surroundings and then lead your readers into sur- 
roundings that will be less familiar and that will be an appropriate 
setting for unusual action. Make the climax of your story powerful 
by using suspense. Indicate that your hero is likely to be over- 
come. Make his final success depend upon his resolution or good 
spirit, — upon his character. Use much conversation. Omit every- 
thing that will not contribute to the effect of the climax. 



THE CRITICAL ESSAY 
. CODDLING IN EDUCATION 

By HENRY SEIDEL CANBY 

(1878). Editor of The Literary Review; Assistant Editor of 
The Yale Review, and Assistant Professor of English in the 
Sheffield Scientific School. He is author and co-author of many 
hooics on English, among which are: The Short Story; Facts, 
Thought and Imagination; and Good English. 

The critical essay comments on a fault, — but it does no more: it 
makes no searching analysis and it points to no specific remedy. 

Coddling in Education is a critical essay. It points at what its 
author believes is a serious fault in American education. Like all 
critical essays it aims at reform, but it merely suggests the means of 
reform. 

Many of the editorial articles in newspapers are examples of the 
critical essay. 

American minds have been coddled in school and college 
for at least a generation. There are two kinds of mental 
coddling. The first belongs to the public schools, and is one 
of the defects of our educational system that we abuse pri- 
vately and largely keep out of print. It is democratic 
coddling. I mean, of course, the failure to hold up standards, 
the willingness to let youth wobble upward, knowing little 
and that inaccurately, passing nothing well, graduating with 
an education that hits and misses like an old type-writer with 
a torn ribbon. America is full of "sloppy thinking," of in- 
accuracy, of half-baked misinformation, of sentimentalism, 
especially sentimentalism, as a result of coddling by schools 
that cater to an easy-going democracy. Only fifty-six per 
cent, of a group of girls, graduates of the public schools, 
whose records I once examined, could do simple addition, 
only twenty-nine per cent, simple multiplication correctly; 
a deplorable percentage had a very inaccurate knowledge of 
elementary American geography. 

267 



268 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

A dozen causes are responsible for this condition, and 
among them, I suspect, one, which if not major, at least de- 
serves careful pondering. The teacher and the taught have 
somehow drifted apart. His function in the large has been 
to teach an ideal, a tradition. He is content, he has to be 
content, with partial results. It is not for life as it is, it is 
for what life ought to be, that he is preparing even in arith- 
metic; he has allowed the faint unreality of a priestcraft to 
numb him. In the mind of the student a dim conception has 
entered, that this education — all education — is a garment 
merely, to be doffed for the struggle with realities. The will 
is dulled. Interest slackens. 

But it is in aristocratic coddling that the effects of our 
educational attitude gleam out to the least observant under- 
standing. This is the coddling of the preparatory schools 
and the colleges, and it is more serious for it is a defect that 
cannot be explained away by the hundred difficulties that 
beset good teaching in a public-school system, nation-wide, 
and conducted for the young of every race in the American 
menagerie. The teaching in the best American preparatory 
schools and colleges is as careful and as conscientious as any 
in the world. That one gladly asserts. Indeed, an American 
boy in a good boarding-school is handled like a rare microbe 
in a research laboratory. He is ticketed ; every instant of his 
time is planned and scrutinized ; he is dieted with brain food, 
predigested, and weighed before application. I sometimes 
wonder if a moron could not be made into an Abraham 
Lincoln by such a system — if the system were sound. 

It is not sound. The boys and girls, especially the boys, 
are coddled for entrance examinations, coddled through 
freshman year, coddled oftentimes for graduation. And they 
too frequently go out into the world fireproof against any- 
thing but intellectual coddling. Such men and women can 
read only writing especially prepared for brains that will 
take only selected ideas, simply put. They can think only on 
simple lines, not too far extended. They can live happily 
only in a life where ideas never exceed the college sixty per 



CODDLING IN EDUCATION 269 

cent, of complexity, and where no intellectual or esthetic ex- 
perience lies too far outside the range of their curriculum. 
A world where one reads the news and skips the editorials; 
goes to musical comedies, but omits the plays; looks at illus- 
trated magazines, but seldom at books ; talks business, sports, 
and politics, but never economics, social welfare, and states-- 
manship — that is the world for which we coddle the best of 
our youth. Many indeed escape the evil effects by their 
own innate originality ; more bear the marks to the grave. 

The process is simple, and one can see it in the English 
public school (where it is being attacked vivaciously) quite 
as commonly as here. You take your boy out of his family 
and his world. You isolate him except for companionship 
with other nursery transplantings and teachers themselves 
isolated. And then you feed him, nay, you cram him, with 
good traditional education, filling up the odd hours with the 
excellent, but negative, passion of sport. Then you subject 
him to a special cramming and send him to college, where 
sometimes he breaks through the net of convention woven 
about him, and sees the real world as it should appear to the 
student before he becomes part of it; but more frequently 
wraps himself deep and more deeply in conventional opinion, 
conventional practice, until, the limbs of his intellectual being 
bound tightly, he stumbles into the outer world. 

And there, in the swirl and the vivid practicalities of 
American life, is the net loosened? I think not. I think 
rather that the youth learns to swim clumsily despite his 
encumbrances of lethargic thinking and tangled idealism. 
But if they are cut? If he goes on the sharp rocks of ex- 
perience, finds that hardness, shrewdness, selfish individualism 
pay best in American life, what has he in his spirit to meet this 
disillusion ? Of what use has been his education in the liberal, 
idealistic traditions of America? Of some use, undoubtedly, 
for habit, even a dull habit, is strong; but whether useful 
enough, whether powerful enough, to save America, to keep 
us "white" in the newer and more colloquial sense, the future 
will test and test quickly. 



270 



MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Explain what the writer means by "coddling." 

2. Define "democratic coddling." 

3. Define aristocratic "coddling." 

4. What are the results of "coddling"? 

5. What are the causes of "coddling"? 

6. What is the writer's ideal of education? 

7. What criticism of American life does the essay present? 

8. Point out effective phrasing. 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. The Best Kind of Teacher 11. 

2. The Most Helpful Subjects 12. 

3. The Value of Marks 13. 

4. Study and Play 14. 

5. What Promotion Means 15. 

6. Mistaken Kindness 16. 

7. The Passing Mark 17. 

8. Scholarship in My School 18. 

9. The Purposes of Study 19. 
10. The School Course 20. 



Thinking for One's Self 

60% or 100% 

Serious Reading 

Pleasure Seeking 

Character Training 

The Value of Hard Work 

Discipline 

Faithfulness in Work 

Real Success in Life 

"Cramming." 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Plan to emphasize some original phrasing like "Coddling in School 
and College." Use familiar words that every one will understand 
but use them in some new relation. 

Make your essay point at a really serious fault that will be worthy 
of attack. Do not go into details, but make your writing represent 
your honest opinion. 

Use expressions that will represent you, and that will make your 
essay personal in nature. Notice how Mr. Canby makes use of 
such words as "wobble," "sloppy," "half-baked," "coddle," "cram" 
and "white." Notice, too, how many conversational short sentences 
Mr. Canby uses. His essay is like a vigorous talk. Make your 
own essay equally personal and equally vigorous. 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 

By GLENN FRANK 

(1887 — ). Editor of The Century Magazine. Be is a mem- 
ber of many important associations, and was one of ex-President 
Taft's associates in suggesting a covenant for the League of 
Nations. His magazine articles are notable for constructive 
thought. 

Any subject is appropriate material for the essayist, and any method 
of treatment is satisfactory so long as the writer gives us his personal 
reaction on some province of human thought. 

The following critical essay begins with the writer's account of a 
series of papers that he once read. To this he adds his own serious 
comment, and he concludes his work by suggesting an ideal. In doing 
all this he makes free use of the pronoun " I, " and writes in an 
informal style. 

The work is therefore not kard and fast logic, but mature and serious 
comment on life. 

Several years ago there appeared a series of papers that 
purported to be the confessions of a successful man who was 
under no delusion as to the essential quality of his attain- 
ments. The papers are not before me as I write, and I must 
trust to memory and a few penciled notes made at the time 
of their appearance, but it will be interesting to recall his 
confessions regarding his education. I think they paint a 
fairly faithful picture of the mind of the average college 
graduate. 

He stated that he came from a family that prided itself on 
its culture and intellectuality and that had always been a 
family of professional folk. His grandfather was a clergy- 
man; among his uncles were a lawyer, a physician, and a 
professor ; his sisters married professional men. He received 
a fairly good primary and secondary education, and was 
graduated from his university with honors. He was, he 
stated, of a distinctly literary turn of mind, and during his 
four years at college imbibed some slight information con- 

271 



272 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

cerning the English classics as well as modern history and 
metaphysics, so that he could talk quite glibly about 
Chaucer/ Beaumont, and Fletcher,^ Thomas Love Peacock,^ 
and Ann Radcliffe,* and speak with apparent familiarity 
about Kant ^ and Schopenhauer.^ 

But, in turning to self -analysis, he stated that he later saw 
that his smattering of culture was neither broad nor deep; 
that he acquired no definite knowledge of the underlying 
principles of general history, of economics, of languages, of 
mathematics, of physics, or of chemistry ; that to biology and 
,its allies he paid scarcely any attention at all, except to take 
a few snap courses ; that he really secured only a surface ac- 
quaintance with polite English literature, mostly very modern, 
the main part of his time having been spent in reading Steven- 
son '^ and Kipling.^ He did well in English composition, he 
said, and pronounced his words neatly and in a refined man- 
ner. He concluded the description of his college days by 
saying that at the end of his course, twenty-three years of 
age, he was handed an imitation parchment degree and pro- 
claimed by the president of the college as belonging to the 
brotherhood of educated men. On this he commented: 

I did not. I was an imitation educated man; but though spurious, 
I was a sufficiently good counterfeit to pass current for what I was 

^Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). Author of The Canterbury Tales, a 
series of realistic narratives in verse. 

=■ Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625). Two 
of the most celebrated of Shakespeare's contemporaries. They wrote in 
collaboration, and produced at least 52 plays. 

^Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866). Author of a number of highly 
original and witty novels. 

*Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823). An English novelist who wrote chiefly 
of the mysterious and terrible, as in The Mysteries of Udolpho, her most 
famous book. 

° Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). A great German philosopher, one of 
the most profound thinkers who ever lived. 

* Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). A German philosopher noted for 
his pessimistic beliefs. 

'Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). Novelist, essayist, poet and 
traveler, noted for his personal appeal and the charm of his style. 

^Rudyard Kipling (1865 — ). A popular present-day novelist, short 
story writer and poet. 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 273 

declared to be. Apart from a little Latin, considerable training in 
writing the English language, and a great deal of miscellaneous reading 
of an extremely light variety, I really had no culture at all. I could 
not speak an idiomatic sentence in French or German. I had only the 
vaguest ideas about applied science or mechanics and no thorough 
knowledge about anything; but I was supposed to be an educated man, 
and on this stock in trade I have done business ever since, with the 
added capital of a degree of LL.B. Now, since graduation, twenty-seven 
years ago, I have given no time to the systematic study of any subject 
except law. I have read no serious works dealing with either history, 
sociology, economics, art, or philosophy. I have rarely read over again 
any of the masterpieces of English literature with which I had at least 
a bowing acquaintance when at college. Even this last sentence I must 
qualify to the extent of admitting that now I see that this acquaintance 
was largely vicarious, and that I frequently read more criticism than 
literature. 

I was taught about Shakespeare, but not Shakespeare. I was in- 
structed in the history of literature, but not in literature itself. I knew 
the names of the works of numerous English authors and knew what 
Taine " and others thought about them, but I knew comparatively little 
of what was between the covers of the books themselves. I was, I find, 
a student of letters by proxy. As time went on I gradually forgot that 
I had not in fact actually perused these volumes, and to-day I am accus- 
tomed to refer familiarly to works I have never read at all, 

I frankly confess that my own ignorance is abysmal. In the last 
twenty-seven years what information I have acquired has been picked up 
principally from newspapers and magazines; yet my library table is 
littered with books on modern art and philosophy and with essays on 
literary and historical subjects. I do not read them. They are my 
intellectual window-dressings. I talk about them with others who, I 
suspect, have not read them either, and we confine ourselves to gen- 
eralities, with careful qualifications of all expressed opinions, no matter 
how vague or elusive. 

This quotation is made from slightly abbreviated notes and 
may be guilty of some verbal variation from the text, but it is 
entirely accurate as to content. As I remember the paper, 
the writer went on to catalogue his educational shortcomings 
in the various fields of interest, confessing fundamental ig- 
norance, save for superficial smatterings of information, of 
art, history, biography, music, poetry, politics, science, and 
economics. He painted an amusing picture of the hollow 
pretense of culture with which the average man of his type 
covers his intellectual poverty. Men of his type speak 

'Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893). A French critic, especially 
noted for his History of English Literature. 



274 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

casually, he said, of Henry of Navarre,^" Beatrice d' Este," 
or Charles the Fifth, ^- without knowing within two hundred 
years when any of them lived or what was their role. His 
lack of knowledge goes deeper than mere names and dates; 
it goes, he said, to the significance of events themselves. , For 
an illustation at random, he knew nothing about what hap- 
pened on the Italian peninsula until Garibaldi,^^ and really 
never knew just who Garibaldi was until he read Trevel- 
yan's^* three books on the Risorgimento, the only serious 
books he had read in years, and he read them because he had 
taken a motor trip through Italy the summer before. He 
knew virtually nothing of Spain, Russia, Poland, Turkey, 
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, or Belgium. He de- 
scribed his type going to the Metropolitan Opera House, 
hearing the best music at big prices, content to murmur vague 
ecstasies over Caruso, in ignorance of who wrote the opera or 
what it is all about, lacking enough virile intellectual curi- 
osity even to spend an hour reading about the opera in one of 
the many available hand-books. 

Coming to the vital matters of public affairs, he confessed 
that, although holding a prominent place on the citizens' 
committee at election-time, he knew nothing definite about 
the city's departments or its fiscal administration. He could 
not direct a poor man to the place where he might obtain 
relief. He knew the city hall by sight, but had never been 
in it. He had never visited the Tombs ^^ or the criminal 
courts, never entered a police station, a fire-house, or prison 

*" Henry of Navarre (1553-1610). King of Navarre and later King 
of France, author of the celebrated Edict of Nantes. 

"Beatrice d'Este (1475-1497). A beautiful and highly cultured 
Duchess of Milan who, in spite of her early death, deeply influenced the 
intellectual leaders of her time. 

"Charles the Fifth (1500-1558). A masterful and virile Emperor of 
the Holy Eoman Empire. 

^'Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882). A great Italian patriot who aided 
in bringing about the unification of Italy. He was at one time a citizen 
of the IJnited States, and was employed in a candle factory on Staten 
Island, New York. 

"George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876). An English historian, author 
of important works on Garibaldi. 

"The Tombs. A New York City prison. 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 275 

of the city. He did not know whether police magistrates 
were appointed or elected, nor in what congressional district 
he resided. He did not know the name of his alderman, as- 
semblyman, state senator, or representative in Congress. He 
did not know who was head of the street-cleaning, health, 
fire, park, or water departments of his city. He could name 
only five of the members of the Supreme Court, three of the 
secretaries in the President's cabinet, and only one of the 
congressmen from his State. He had never studied save in 
the most superficial manner the single tax, minimum wage, 
free trade, protection, income tax, inheritance tax, the 
referendum, the recall, and other vital questions. 

Of the authorship of these anonymous confessions I know 
nothing. They may have been fiction instead of biography, 
for all I know. But their content would still be true were 
their form fiction. I have recalled these confessions at length 
because in my judgment they present an uncomfortably true 
analysis of the average American college graduate's mind, 
his range of interests, and his grasp of those fundamentals 
which underlie a citizen's worth in a democracy. It is from 
the college graduates of this country that we must look for 
our leaders in the complex and baffling years ahead, and it is 
a matter of the gravest concern to the country if we are 
raising up a generation of men, into whose hands leadership 
will pass, whose minds have been atrophied by superficial 
study, whose imagination is unlit, who have an apathetic 
indifference toward the supreme issues of our political, social, 
and industrial life, who lack capacity and background for 
the analysis of broad questions and for creative thinking. If 
these confessions of "The Goldfish" papers tell a true story, 
if we are failing to produce a leader class adequate to meet 
the needs of the present time, as it seems to me there is sound 
evidence to prove, then it behooves us to reexamine, reconceive, 
and reorganize our colleges. 

If we are to raise up adequate leadership for the future, 
our colleges must contrive to give to students a genuinely 
liberal education that will make them intelligent citizens of 
the world; an education that will make the student at home 



276 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

in the modern world, able to work in harmony with the 
dominant forces of his age, not at cross-purposes to them; 
an education that will acquaint him with the physical, social, 
economic, and political aspects, laws, and forces of his world ; 
an education that will furnish to the student tliat adequate 
background and primary information needed for the in- 
terpretation of current life; an education that will help the 
student to plot out the larger world beyond the campus; an 
education that will give the student an interest in those events 
and issues in which people generally are concerned; an edu- 
cation that will enable the student to give intelligent and 
informed consideration to the significant political and eco- 
nomic problems of American life; an education that will 
provide the student with a sort of Baedeker's ^° guide to 
civilization; in short, an education that will make for that 
spacious-minded type of citizen which alone can bring ade- 
quate leadership to a democracy. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Apply the writer's criticism to work done in school. 

2. What should be the purpose of public school education? 

3. What advantage does the writer gain by quoting from the 

"successful failure" ? 

4. Why does the writer give only a resume of some of the words 

of the "successful failure"? 

5. What is real culture? 

6. What is the difference between "passing" and "learning"? 

7. What is an "imitation parchment degree"? 

8. How long should a person pursue systematic study? 

9. What principles should guide a person in reading books? 

10. What is the difference between being "taught about Shake- 

speare" and being "taught Shakespeare"? 

11. What is the proper attitude toward newspaper reading? 

12. What is "intellectual window-dressing"? 

13. What should one know of history? 

14. What should one know concerning various lands? 

15. On what should real appreciation of music depend? 

"Karl Baedeker (1801-1859). The originator of Baedeker 'a Guide 
Books to various lands. 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 277 

16. How should education contribute to political life? 

17. What is the importance of education in the United States? 

18. What is the basis of real leadei"ship? 

19. Make a list of the "vital matters of public affair" ©n wkich the 

writer believes people should be informed. 

20. On how many of these subjects are you informed? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. My Own Scholarship 11. Learning a Foreign LangTiage 

2. My School Career 12. The Value of Science 

3. Public School Scholarship 13. Reading Shakespeare 

4. Real Study 14. Studying Music 

5. The Passing Mark 15. Newspaper Reading 

6. The Best Teachers 16. The Use of a Library 

7. The Study of History 17. A Real Student 

8. Good Reading 18. An Educated Citizen 

9. The Study of Governments 19. A Good School 
10. The Purpose of Education 20. Systematic Study 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

If you cannot quote from the words of written articles yeu can 
at least quote from what people have said in conversation. You 
can also make full use of your own experience. Begin your essay, 
as Mr. Frank begins his, by making some statement of actual expe- 
rience. When you have done this add original comments that will 
lead, in the end, to a wise suggestion for the future. Both by the 
use of the pronoun "I," and by a certain informality of style, make 
your work personal. 



THE DROLLERIES OF CLOTHES 

By AGNES EEPPLIEE 

(1858 — ). One of the most noted American essayists. 
Among her boolcs are: Essays in Miniature; Essays in Idleness; 
In the Dozy Hours; A Happy Half Century; Americans and 
Others. 

Miss Agnes Eepplier for many years has kept her high place as one 
of the most popular American essayists. She has written upon a great 
variety of subjects, and always with charm and substantial thought. 
The essay on The Drolleries of Clothes shows with how much good spirit 
one may write even a critical essay. 

In that engaging volume, "The Vanished Pomps of Yes- 
terday, ' ' Lord Frederic Hamilton,^ commenting on the beauty 
and grace of the Austrian women, observes thoughtfully : 
"In the far-off seventies ladies did not huddle themselves 
into a shapeless mass of abbreviated oddments of material. 
They dressed, and their clothes fitted them. A woman upon 
whom nature has bestowed a good figure was able to display 
her gifts to the world." 

That a woman to whom nature had been less kind was 
compelled to display her deficiencies is a circumstance ignored 
by Hamilton, who, being a man of the world and a man of 
fashion, regarded clothes as the insignia of caste. The costly 
costumes, the rich and sweeping draperies in which he de- 
lighted, were not easy of imitation. The French ladies who 
followed the difficult lead of the Empress Eugenia ^ supported 
the transparent whiteness of their billowy skirts with at least 

*Lord Frederic Hamilton (1856 — ). An English diplomat and editor. 
He has travelled in many lands. Among his works are: The Holiday 
Adventures of Mr. P. J. Davenant ; Lady Eleanor; The Vanished 
Pomps of Yesterday. 

=■ Empress Eugenia (1826-1920). A Spanish Countess who in 1853 
became the wife of Napoleon III of France and the natural leader 
of French society. 

278 



THE DROLLERIES OF CLOTHES 279 

a dozen fine, sheer petticoats. Now it is obvious that no wo- 
man of the working classes (except a blanchisseuse de fin ^ who 
might presumably wear her customers' laundry) could afford 
a dozen white petticoats. But when it comes to stripping off a 
solitary petticoat, no one is too poor or too plain to be in the 
fashion. When it comes to clipping a dress at the knee, the 
factory girl is as fashionable as the banker's daughter, and 
far more at her ease. Her "abbreviated oddments" are a 
convenience in the limited spaces of the mill, and she is 
hardier to endure exposure. She thanks the kindly gods who 
have fitted the fashions to her following, and she takes a 
few more inches off her solitary garment to make sure of 
being in the style. 

Not that women of any class regard heat or cold, comfort 
or discomfort, as a controlling factor in dress. In this regard 
they are less highly differentiated from the savage than are 
men, who, with advancing civilization, have modified their 
attire into something like conformity to climate and to season. 
The savage, even the savage who, like the Tierra del Fuegian,* 
lives in a cold country, considers clothes less as a covering 
than as an adornment. So also do women, who take a simple 
primitive delight in garments devoid of utilitarianism. For 
the past half-dozen years American women have worn furs 
during the sweltering heat of American summers. Perhaps 
by the sea, or in the mountains, a chill day may now and 
then warrant this costume; but on the burning city 
streets the fur-clad females, red and panting, have been 
pitiful objects to behold. They suffered, as does the Polar 
bear in August in the zoo; but they suffered irrationally, 
and because they lacked the wit to escape from self-inflicted 
torment. 

For the past two winters women have worn fur coats or 
capes which swathed the upper part of their bodies in volum- 
inous folds, and stopped short at the knee. From that point 
down, the thinnest of silk stockings have been all the covering 

° Blanchisseuse de fin, A laundress. 

* Tierra del Fuegian. An inhabitant of the archipelago at the extreme 
southern end of South America. 



280 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

permitted. The theory that, if one part of the body be 
protected, another part may safely and judiciously be ex- 
posed, has ever been dear to the female heart. It may be 
her back, her bosom, or her legs which the woman selects to 
exhibit. In any case she affirms that the uncovered portions 
of her anatomy never feel the cold. If they do, she endures 
the discomfort with the stoicism of the savage who keeps his 
ornamental scars open with irritants, and she is nerved to 
endurance by the same impelling motive. 

This motive is not personal vanity. Vanity has had little 
to do with savage, barbarous, and civilized customs. The 
ancient Peruvians who deformed their heads, pressing them 
out of shape ; the Chinese who deform their feet, bandaging 
them into balls; the Africans who deform their mouths, 
stretching them with wooden discs; the Bomeans who 
deform their ears, dragging the lobes below their shoul- 
der blades; the European and American women who 
deformed their bodies, tightening their stays to produce the 
celebrated "hour-glass" waist, have all been victims of some- 
thing more powerful than vanity, the inexorable decrees of 
fashion. 

As a matter of fact the female mind is singularly devoid of 
illusions. Women do not think their layers of fat or their 
protruding collar bones beautiful and seductive. They dis- 
play them because fashion makes no allowance for personal 
defects, and they have not yet reached that stage of civiliza- 
tion which achieves artistic sensibility, which ordains and 
preserves the eternal law of fitness. They know, for ex- 
ample, that nuns, waitresses, and girls in semi-military 
uniforms look handsomer than they are, because of straight 
lines and adroit concealment; but they fail to derive from 
this knowledge any practical guidance. 

I can remember when "pull-back" skirts and btistles were 
in style. They were uncomfortable, unsanitary, and un- 
sightly. Their wearers looked grotesquely deformed, and 
knew it. They submitted to fate, and prayed for a speedy 
deliverance. The fluctuations of fashion are alternately a 




The fluctuations of fashion are alternately a grievance and a 

solace 



THE DEOLLEBIES OF CLOTHES 29l 

grievance and a solace. John Evelyn,' cconmenting on the 
dress worn by EnglLshrnen in the time of Charles the First,* 
Kays that it was "a comely and manly habit, t'X* good to 
hold." It did not hold becaase the Puritan.s, who .saw no 
reason why manliness ^onld be comely, Kwept it aside. The 
btuttle wa« much too bad to hold. It grew beamifnlly le^ 
every year, and then suddenly disappeared- ^lany dry eyes 
witnessed its departure. 

If abhorrence of a fashion cannot keep women from slav- 
ishly following it, thej- naturally remain unmoved by outside 
coun.sel and criticism. For yeani the doctors exhausted them- 
selves proclaiming the disastrouj? consequences of tight-lacing, 
which must certainly be held responsible for the obsolete 
cuaUjm of fainting. For years satirists and moralists united 
in attacking the crinoline. In Waf*on'« .4n7vi7*, l>s.56, a 
virtuous Philadelphian published a solemn protest against 
Christian ladies wearing enormous hoops to church, thereby 
6^:andalizing and, what was worse, inconveniencing the male 
congregation. When the Great War started a wave of fatuous 
extravagance, it was solemnly reported that Mrs. Lloyd 
George was endeavoring to dissuade the wives of workingmen 
from buying .silk stockings and fur coats. When the Great 
l^diuid let loose upon us the most fantastic ab.surdities known 
for half a century, the papers bristled with such hopeful 
headlines as these: "Club Women Approve Semdble Styles 
of Dre«j, " "Social Leaders Condemn Indecorous Fashions," 
"Crusade in Churches Against Prevailing Scantiness of 
Attire," and so on, and so on indefinitely. 

And to what purpose? The unrest of a rapidly changing 
world broke down the old supremacies, smashed all appre- 
ciable standards, and left us only a vague clutter of impres- 
sions. When a woman 's dress no longer indicates her fortune, 

•John Evelyn (1620-1706). The author of a diary kept from 1624- 
1706 in whieh he grres a wealth of information eoneeming life in his 
period- 

* Charles I ri600-1649;. King of England from 162.5 to 1649. He 
waa overthrown and beheaded by the adhexenta of the parliamentary, 
or Puritan, forces. 



282 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

station, age, or honesty, we have reached the twilight of taste ; 
but such dim, confused periods are recurrent in the history 
of sociology. The girl who works hard and decently for 
daily bread, but who walks the streets with her little nose 
whitened like concrete, and her little cheeks reddened like 
brick-dust, and her little under-nourished body painfully 
evidenced to the crowd, is tremulously imitating the woman 
of the town; but the most inexperienced eye catalogues her 
at a glance. Let us be grateful for her sake if she bobs her 
hair, for that is a cleanly custom, whereas the great knobs 
which she formerly wore over her ears harbored nests of 
vermin. It is one of the comedies of fashion that short hair, 
which half a century ago indicated strongmindedness, now 
represents the utmost levity; just as the bloomers of 1852 
stood for stern reform, and the attempted trousers of 1918 
stood for lawlessness. Both were rejected by women who 
have never been unaware that the skirt carries with it an 
infinite variety of possibilities. 

A winning wave, deserving note, 
In the tempestuous petticoat, 

wrote Evelyn's contemporary, Herriek,'' who was more con- 
cerned with the comeliness of Julia's clothes than with his 
own. 

There is still self-revelation in dress, but not personal self- 
revelation. We may still apply the test of costume to people 
and to periods, but not safely to individuals, who suffer from 
coercion. Women's ready-made clothes are becoming more 
and more like liveries. A dozen shop windows, a dozen es- 
tablishments, display the same model over and over again, 
the materials and prices varying, the gown always the same. 
The lines may lack distinction, and the colors may lack 
serenity ; but then distinction and serenity are not the great 
underlying qualities of our fretted age. The "abbreviated 
oddments," with their strange admixture of the bizarre and 
the commonplace, strike a purely modern note. They are 

'Robert Herrick (1591-1674). An English poet, author of many 
charming poems, one of which is Gather Ye Eosebuds While Ye May. 



THE DBOLLERIES OF CLOTHES 283 

democratic. They are as appropriate, or, I might say, as 
inappropriate, to one class of women as to another. They are 
helping, more than we can know, to level the barriers of caste. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Summarize what the essay says in criticism of modem fashions. 

2. What does the essay say concerning fashions in the past? 

3. Summarize Miss Repplier's suggestions for ideal costumes. 

4. Explain why the writer refers to the fashions of savages. 

5. By what means does the writer give interest to her work? 

6. How does the essay differ from an ordinary informational 

article? 

7. What advantage does the writer gain by referring to various 

works of literature? 

8. How does the writer avoid harshness of criticism? 

9. What is the general plan of the essay? 

10. What does the article show concerning Miss Repplier? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. Fashions for Men 


11. 


Children's Clothes 


2. Jewelry 


12. 


Style in Shoes 


3. Good Manners 


13. 


Social Customs 


4. Table Etiquette 


14. 


Street Behavior 


5. Neckties 


15. 


Ribbons 


Q. Dancing 


16. 


School Yells 


7. Spoken English 


17. 


Slang 


8. Stockings 


18. 


Hair Dressing 


9. Buttons 


19. 


The Use of Mirrors 


LO. Exercise 


20. 


Walking 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Your object is to write, in a critical vein, about some modem 
custom, and to write without bitterness. Embody your criticism in 
mild humor. Find something good even in the midst of what is bad. 
Above all, draw definite examples from literature and history, in 
order to make your thought have weight. 



POETIC PROSE 
CHILDREN 

By YUKIO OZAKI 

Madame OsaTci is the wife of a former mayor of ToTcyo and 
former Minister of Justice in the Okuma Caiinet. She writes 
for many magazines. Among her hooTcs are: Warriors of Old 
Japan; The Japanese Fairy Book; Eomances of Old Japan, 

The essay is so natural an expression of the writer's personality that 
it has much in common with lyric poetry. Both the essay and the lyric, 
at their best, are ardent expressions of self. When the emotion in 
either is deep and genuine the language takes on richness of rhythm, 
and the effect becomes entirely poetic. Many of the best essays contain 
passages that in all except meter and rime are poems, — prose poems. 

Children is an example of highly poetic prose. 

Let us love our children serenely, devotedly, even pas- 
sionately. Surely in their innocence and angelic simplicity 
they play on the threshold of heaven. Let us hush our noisy 
activities and stale anxieties, and under the trees and in the 
open that they love listen to the words of refreshing wisdom 
dropping like jewels from their naive lips. 

Let us be willing to sit at their dainty little feet, so unused 
to the dusty roads of this world, and learn from them divinest 
lessons. Let us with uplifted hearts realize our responsibility 
when with unconscious humility they accept us as their guides 
in the sweet, fresh morning of their lives. 

sister-mothers in the world, let us awaken to a deeper 
sense of this sublime trust, our high charge in the care of these 
immortal treasures, only for a little while, such a little while, 
given into our keeping! Let us make our hearts, our minds, 
our consciences worthy of these transcendent marvels of life ! 

Oh, joy of joys! Oh, purest wonder! How often my 
children lift the invisible veils that hide undreamed-of case- 

284 



CHILDEEN 285 

ments opening out on luminous vistas of the mystical world 
in which they wander, roaming fancy-free with keen and 
wondering delight! 

Take me with you, oh, take me with you, children mine, 
when with bright eyes and with kindled imagination, all spirit, 
fire and dew, you sally forth on these highroads of discovery, 
to the elysiums of your day-dreams, peopled by the souls of 
birds, animals, flowers and pictures in happy communion! 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Point out examples of rhythmical sentences. 

2. Point out figures of speech. 

3. Point out words that have been chosen because of their charm, 

or their suggestive power. 

4. Show how the selection rises in emotion. 

5. How do children "play on the threshold of heaven"? 

6. What "refreshing wisdom" do children express? 

7. What "divinest lessons" may we learn from children? 

8. What "undreamed of casements" do children open? 

9. Explain the last paragraph. 

10. Point out all the respects in which this selection is like a poem. 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 



1. The Baby 


11. Dreams 


2. The Helpless - 


12. Beautiful Views 


3. The Old 


13. The Sunshine 


4. Father and Mother 


14. Smnmer 


5. Grandmother 


15. Favorite Flowers 


6, Home 


16. Birds 


7. Playmates 


17. My Dog 


8. Memories 


18. The Garden 


9. Holidays 


19. Snow 


10. Ambitions 


20. Sunrise 



DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

In order to write poetic prose you must write from genuine 
emotion. Write about something that you really love. Choose your 



286 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

words so that they will most clearly reveal your feelings. Think 
of the deeper meanings and of the greater values of your subject. 
Make your essay increase steadily in power until the very end. 
Make it, like a good lyric poem, reveal the writer's best self in one 
of his noblest moments. 



SHIPS THAT LIFT TALL SPIRES OF CANVAS* 

By KALPH D. PAINE 

(1871 — ). An American author and journalist, especially 
noted for excellent work as a war correspondent. Among his 
many books concerning the sea are the following : The Praying 
Skipper, and Other Stories; The Ships and Sailors of Old 
Salem; The Judgments of the Sea; The Adventures of Captain 
O'Shea; The Fighting Fleets; The Fight for a Free Sea. He 
is a frequent contributor to magazines. 

Ships That Lift Tall Spires of Canvas is practically a poem, although 
it is wTitten in prose. It is an emotional expression of admiration for the 
sailing vessels of the past, and for the gallant sailors who manned 
them. It is evident that the author is familiar with many stories of 
romantic voyages and grim adventure on the deep, and that his emotion 
springs from his knowledge. That genuineness of feeling did much to 
lead him to choose suggestive words and to write in balanced and 
rhythmical sentences. All good style comes in large part from earnest- 
ness of thought or depth of emotion, and in smaller degree from 
knowledge of fhe rhetorical means of conveying thought or emotion. 

Oh, night and day the ships come in, 

The ships both great and small. 

But never one among them brings 

A word of him at all. 

From Port o' Spain and Trinidad, 

From Rio or Funchal, 

And along the coast of Barbary. 

Steam has not banished from the deep sea the ships that 
lift tall spires of canvas to win their way from port to port. 
The gleam of their topsails recalls the centuries in which men 
wrought with stubborn courage to fashion fabrics of wood 
and cordage that would survive the enmity of the implacable 
ocean and make the winds obedient. Their genius was un- 
sung, their hard toil forgotten, but with each generation the 
sailing ship became nobler and more enduring, until it was 
a perfect thing. Its great days live in memory with a pe- 
culiar atmosphere of romance. Its humming shrouds were 

* From ' ' Lost Ships and Lonely Seas, ' ' by Ralph D. Paine. Copy- 
right by the Century Co. 

287 



288 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

vibrant with the eternal call of the sea. and in a phantom 
fleet pass the towerintr East Indiaman. the hard-driven At- 
lantic packet, and the ^racions clipper that tied before the 
Sonthern trades. 

A hundred years ago every bay and ink^t of the New 
Enghind coast were building ships that fared bravely forth 
to the West Indies, to the roadsteads of Europe, to the 
mysterious havens of the Far East. They siiiled in peril of 
pirate and privateer, and fought these rascals as sturdily as 
they battled with wicked weather. Coasts were unlightcd, 
the seas uncharted, and navigation was mostly guesswork, 
but these seamen were the flower of an American merchant 
marine whose deeds are heroic in the nation's story. Great 
hearts in little ships, they dared and suffered with simple, 
uncomplaining fortitude. Shipwreck was an incident, and to 
be adrift in lonely seas or cast upon a barbarous shore was 
sadly commonplace. They lived the stuff that made fiction 
after they were gone. 

suctGestive questions 

1. ^Make a list of the most effective adjectives in the selection. 

2. Make a list of the words that do most to sugg:est the sea. 

3. Read aloud the most effective sentences. 

4. Point out examples of balanceii construction. 

5. Show that the author has indicated the entire field of the subject. 

6. In what ways is the selection poetic? 

7. What famous books tell stories of sailin^r vessels? 
S. What books of the sea did Feuimore Cooper write? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Old Gardens H- My Grandmother 

2. Farm Houses 12- Old Letters 

3. My Childhood Home 13. A Happy Day 

4. Motbere 1-i- The Old Soldier 

5. Flowers 15. A Relic 

6. Memories 16. A Familiar Street 

7. Old School-books 17. Changes 

8. Old Friends 18. Souvenirs 

9. Childhood Games 19. Skating 

10. Favorite Stories 20. Summer Days 



SHIPS THAT LIFT TALL SPIKES OF CANVAS 289 



! DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

The subject that you select must be one concerning which you 
know a great deal. It must be one that exists not only in your 
brain but also in your heart. 

When you have selected your subject make a list of the points 
that appeal to you- most, and that will represent every side of the 
subject. 

When you write, let your emotion guide your pen. At the same 
time make every effort to select words that will be full of suggestive 
power. Write easily and rhythmically, and let your work end, as 
Mr. Paine's does, in an especially effective sentence. 



PERSONALITY IN CORRESPONDENCE 

By THEODORE ROOSEVELT and AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS 

(1858-1919). Twenty -sixth President of the United States. 
One of the most vigorous, courageous and picturesque figures 
in the public life of his day. Soon after his graduation from 
Harvard, and from Columbia Law School he entered public 
life, and gave invaluable service in many positions, becoming 
President in 1901, and again in 1904. His worTc as an organizer 
of the "Bough Eiders," his slcill in horsemanship, his courage 
as an explorer and hunter, and his staunch patriotism and 
high ideals all made him both interesting and beloved. His work 
as an author is alone sufficient to make him great. Among his 
many books are The Winning of the West; The Strenuous 
Life; African Game Trails; True Americanism, 

(1848-1907). One of the greatest American sculptors. His 
statues of Admiral Farragut, Abraham Lincoln, The Puritan, 
Peter Cooper, and General Sherman are noble examples of his 
art. Many other works of sculpture, including the beautiful 
"Diana" on Madison Square Garden Tower, New York, attest 
his rare skill. He excelled in what is called ' ' relief. ' ' His 
influence on American art was remarkably great. His portrait- 
plaque of Bobert Louis Stevenson is especially interesting to 
lovers of literature. 

The essay and the friendly letter are closely related. It is natural 
for one who writes a friendly letter to express himself freely and 
intimately, to make wise or humorous comments on life, to \vTite medi- 
tatively of all the things that interest him, — in fact, to reveal himself 
in full. To do all that, even within the limited form of the letter, is to 
write an approach to an essay. Almost any one of the essays in this 
book might have been written as part of a friendly letter. 

The spirit of the essay, that of personality, should enter into all 
letters except those that are purely formal in nature. In fact, the 
amount of personality expressed in a letter is, often, a measure of 
the success of the letter. 

The following letters written by Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus 
Saint-Gaudens are, in a sense, business letters. In 1905 Mr. Roosevelt 
was president of the United States. He believed that the coins ol the 
United States, like the coins of the ancient Greeks, should be beautiful. 
That he had the highest respect for the great sculptor, Augustus Saint- 
Gaudens, is shown by a letter that he wrote in 1903 concerning the 
impressively beautiful statue of General Sherman, that now stands at 

290 



PERSONALITY IN CORRESPONDENCE 291 

the 59th Street entrance to Central Park, New York City. In 1905 
Mr, Roosevelt met Mr. Saint-Gaudens at a dinner in Washington and 
talked with him concerning the coinage of the United States and the 
possibility of improving it. The letters given in this book are part of 
the correspondence that followed this conversation. 

Both men had serious purpose in writing and both were intensely 
practical; yet each man wrote in a manner that is exceedingly personal. 
The letters have something of the spirit of the essay. 



The Statue of General Sherman 

White House 

Washington 

Oyster Bay, N. Y, 
Personal Au^st 3, 1903. 

My dkar Mr. Saint-Gaudens: 

Your letter was a great relief and pleasure to me. I had 

been told that it was you personally who had opposed . 

I have no claim to be listened to about these matters, save 
such claim as a man of ordinary cultivation has. But I do 

think that , like Proctor, has done excellent work in 

his wild-beast figures. 

By the way, I was very glad that the Grant decision 
in Washington went the way it did. The rejected figure, 
it seemed to me, fell between two schools. It suggested al- 
legory; and yet it did not show that high quality of imagi- 
nation which must be had when allegory is suggested. The 
figure that was taken is the figure of the great general, the 
great leader of men. It is not the greatest type of statue 
for the very reason that there is nothing of the allegorical, 
nothing of the highest type of the imaginative in it. But 
it is a good statue. Now to my mind your Sherman is the 
greatest statue of a commander in existence. But I can 
say with all sincerity that I know of no man — of course 
of no one living — who could have done it. To take grim, 
homely, old Sherman, the type and ideal of a democratic 
general, and put with him an allegorical figure such as you 
did, could result in but one of two ways — a ludicrous failure 
or striking the very highest note of the sculptor's art. Thrice 



292 MODEEN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

over for the good fortune of our countrymen, it was given to 
you to strike this highest note. 

Always faithfully yours, 
Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 
Aspet, Windsor, Vermont. 

The Roosevelt-Saint-Gaudens Correspondence Concerning 

Coinage 

The White House 

Washington 

Nov. 6, 1905. 
My dear Saint -Gaudens: 

How is that old gold coinage design getting along? I 
want to make a suggestion. It seems to me worth while to 
try for a really good coinage; though I suppose there will 
be a revolt about it! I was looking at some gold coins of 
Alexander the Great to-day, and I was struck by their high 
relief. Would it not be well to have our coins in high re- 
lief, and also to have the rims raised? The point of having 
the rims raised would be, of course, to protect the figure on 
the coin; and if we have the figures in high relief, like the 
figures on the old Greek coins, they will surely last longer. 
What do you think of this ? 

With warm regards. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 

Windsor, Vermont. 

Windsor, Vermont, Nov. 11, 1905. 
Dear Mr. President: 

You have hit the nail on the head with regard to the 
coinage. Of course the great coins (and you might almost 
say the only coins) are the Greek ones you speak of, just 
as the great medals are those of the fifteenth century by 
Pisanello and Sperandio. Nothing would please me more 




Obverse of the ten-dollar gold 
piece, in high relief, and be- 
fore the addition of the head- 
dress, on President Koose- 
velt 's suggestion. 



Obverse of the ten-dollar gold 
piece with the Eoosevelt 
feather head-dress. Before 
the relief was radically low- 
ered for minting. 






■;V^ 





Liberty obverse of the twenty- 
dollar gold piece as finally 
designed. The relief, how- 
ever, was made lower before 
minting. 



Liberty obverse of the twenty- 
dollar gold piece. The head- 
dress. President Eoosevelt 's 
idea, was later eliminated on 
this figure as too small to be 
effective on the actual coin. 



PERSONALITY IN COREESPONDENCE 293 

than to make the attempt in the direction of the heads of 
Alexander, but the authorities on modern monetary require- 
ments would, I fear, "throw fits," to speak emphatically, if 
the thing was done now. It would be great if it could be 
accomplished and I do not see what the objection would be 
if the edges were high enough to prevent rubbing. Perhaps 
an inquiry from you would not receive the antagonistic 
reply from those who have the say in such matters that 
would certainly be made to me. 

Up to the present I have done no work on the actual models 
for the coins, but have made sketches, and the matter is 
constantly in my mind. I have about determined on the 
composition of one side, which would contain an eagle very 
much like the one I placed on your medal with a modifica- 
tion that would be advantageous. On the other side I would 
place a (possibly winged) figure of liberty striding ener- 
getically forward as if on a mountain top holding aloft on 
one arm a shield bearing the Stars and Stripes with the 
word "Liberty" marked across the field, in the other hand, 
perhaps, a flaming torch. The drapery would be flowing 
in the breeze. My idea is to make it a living thing and typi- 
cal of progress. 

Tell me frankly what you think of this and what your ideas 
may be. I remember you spoke of the head of an Indian. 
Of course that is always a superb thing to do, but would it 
be a sufficiently clear emblem of Liberty as required by law ? 

I send you an old book on coins which I am certain you 
will find of interest while waiting for a copy that I have 
ordered from Europe. 

Faithfully yours, 

August Saint-Gaudens. 

The White House 

Washington 

Nov. 14, 1905. 
My dear Mr. Saint-Gaudens: 

I have your letter of the 11th instant and return herewith 
the book on coins, which I think you should have until you 



294 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

get the other one. I have summoned all the mint people, 
and I am going to see if I cannot persuade them that coins 
of the Grecian type but with the raised rim will meet the 
commercial needs of the day. Of course I want to avoid too 
heavy an outbreak of the mercantile classes, because after 
all it is they who do use the gold. If we can have an eagle 
like that on the Inauguration Medal, only raised, I should 
feel that we would be awfully fortunate. Don't you think 
that we might accomplish something by raising the figures 
more than at present but not as much as in the Greek coins ? 
Probably the Greek coins would be so thick that modern 
banking houses, where they have to pile up gold, would 
simply be unable to do so. How would it do to have a design 
struck off in a tentative fashion — that is, to have a model 
made? I think your Liberty idea is all right. Is it possi- 
ble to make a Liberty with that Indian feather head-dress? 
Would people refuse to regard it as a Liberty ? The figure of 
Liberty as you suggest would be beautiful. If we get down 
to bed-rock facts would the feather head-dress be any more 
out of keeping with the rest of Liberty than the canonical 
Phrygian cap which never is worn and never has been worn 
by any free people in the world? 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 
Windsor, Vermont. 



Windsor, Vermont, Nov. 22, 1905. 
Dear Mr. President: 

Thank you for your letter of the 14th and the return 
of the book on coins. 

I can perfectly well use the Indian head-dress on the 
figure of Liberty. It should be very handsome. I have been 
at work for the last two days on the coins and feel quite 
enthusiastic about it. 

I enclose a copy of a letter to Secretary Shaw which ex- 



PERSONALITY IN CORRESPONDENCE 295 

plains itself. If you are of my opinion and will help, I 
shall be greatly obliged. 

Faithfully yours, 
August Saint-Gaudens. 
[Hand-written postscript.] 

I think something between the high relief of the Greek 
coins and the extreme low relief of the modern work is 
possible, and as you suggest, I will make a model with that 
in view. 

Windsor, Vermont, Nov. 22, 1905. 
Hon. L. M. Shaw, 

Secretary of the Treasury, 
Washington, D. C. 
Dear Sir: 

I am now engaged on the models for the coinage. The law 
calls for, viz., "On one side there shall be an impression 
emblematic of liberty, with an inscription of the word 'lib- 
erty' and the year of the coinage." It occurs to me that 
the addition on this side of the coins of the word "Justice" 
(or "Law," preferably the former) would add force as 
well as elevation to the meaning of the composition. At 
one time the words "In God we trust" were placed on the 
coins. I am not aware that there was authorization for that, 
but I may be mistaken. 

Will you kindly inform me whether what I suggest is 
possible. 

Yours very truly, 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens. 

The White House 

Washington 

Nov. 24, 1905. 
My dear Mr. Saint-Oaudens: 

This is first class. I have no doubt we can get permission 
to put on the word "Justice," and I firmly believe that you 
can evolve something that will not only be beautiful from 



296 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

the artistic standpoint, but that, between the very high re- 
lief of the Greek and the very low relief of the modern coins, 
will be adapted both to the mechanical necessities of our 
mint production and the needs of modern commerce, and 
yet will be worthy of a civilized people — which is not true 
of our present coins. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 
Windsor, Vermont. 

The White House 

Washington 

Jan. 6, 1906. 
My dear Saint-Gaudens : 

I have seen Shaw about that coinage and told him that 
it was my. pet baby. We will try it anyway, so you go 
ahead. Shaw was really very nice about it. Of course he 
thinks I am a mere crack-brained lunatic on the subject, 
but he said with great kindness that there was always a cer- 
tain number of gold coins that had to be stored up in 
vaults, and that there was no earthly objection to having 
those coins as artistic as the Greeks could desire. (I am 
paraphrasing his words, of course.) I think it will seriously 
increase the mortality among the employes of the mint at 
seeing such a desecration, but they will perish in a good 
cause ! 

Always yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 

Windsor, Vermont. 

The White House 

Washington 

October 1, 1906. 
Personal 
My dear Mr. Saint-Gaudens: 

The mint people have come down, as you can see from 
the enclosed letter which is in answer to a rather dictatorial 



PERSONALITY IN COREESPONDENCE 297 

one I sent to the Secretary of the Treasury. "When can we 
get that design for the twenty-dollar gold piece? I hate 
to have to put on the lettering, but under the law I have 
no alternative ; yet in spite of the lettering I think, my dear 
sir, that you have given us a coin as wonderful as any of 
the old Greek coins. I do not want to bother you, but do 
let me have, it as quickly as possible. I would like to haVe 
the coin well on the way to completion by the time Congress 
meets. 

It was such a pleasure seeing your son the other day. 

Please return Director Roberts' letter to me when you 
have noted it. 

Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 

Windsor, Vermont. 

The White House 
Washington 

December 11, 1906. 
My dear Mr. Saint-Gaudens: 

I hate to trouble you, but it is very important that I should 
have the models for those coins at once. How soon may I 
have them? 

With all good wishes, believe me, 

Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 
Windsor, Vermont. 

Windsor, Vermont, December 19, 1906. 
Dear Mr. President: 

I am afraid from the letter sent you on the fourteenth 
with the models for the Twenty-Dollar Gold piece that you 
will think the coin I sent you was unfinished. This is not 
the case. It is the final and completed model, but 1 hold 
myself in readiness to make any such modifications as may 
be required in the reproduction of the coin. 



298 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

This will explain the words, "test model" on the back of 
each model. 

Faithfully yours, 
Augustus Saint-Gaudens. 

The White House 

Washington 

December 20, 1906. 
My dear Saint-Gaudens: 

Those models are simply immense — if such a slang way 
of talking is permissible in reference to giving a modern 
nation one coinage at least which shall be as good as that 
of the ancient Greeks. I have instructed the Director of 
the Mint that these dies are to be reproduced just as quickly 
as possible and just as they are. It is simply splendid. I 
suppose I shall be impeached for it in Congress; but I shall 
regard that as a very cheap payment ! 

With heartiest regards, 



Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Eoosevelt. 



Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 
Windsor, Vermont. 



SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Why should a great statue have in it something of the allegor- 

ical? 

2. Describe Mr. Saint-Gaudens' statue of General Sherman. 

3. What does the first letter show concerning Mr. Roosevelt's opin- 

ion of the art of sculpture? 

4. In what ways are the old Greek coins beautiful? 

5. Point out essay-like freedom in the use of English. 

6. Point out passages that are notably personal. 

7. What were Mr. Roosevelt's plans for the making of United 

States coins? 

8. What were Mr. Saint-Gaudens' plans ? 

9. Draw from the letters material for an essay on coinage. 

10. Show in what respects the letters have something of the spirit 
of the essay. 



PEESONALITY IN CORRESPONDENCE 299 



SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. A letter suggesting an inter-school debate. 

2. A letter inviting a graduate of the school to act as judge at a 

debate. 

3. A letter inviting a prominent citizen to address a society of 

which jou are a member. 

4. A letter telling of your experiences in a place that you are visit- 

ing for the first time. 

5. A letter giving your opinion of a book that you have read 

recently. 

6. A letter telling your plans for the coming vacation. 

7. A letter concerning the use of an athletic field. 

8. A letter inviting the graduates of your school to come to a school 

festival or entertainment. 

9. A letter concerning music in your school. 

10. A letter giving an excuse for absence. 

11. A letter concerning work in photography. 

12. A letter concerning the work of prominent athletes. 

13. A letter concerning arrangements for class day exercises. 

14. A letter concerning graduation week. 

15. A letter to a teacher who has left the school. 

16. A letter to a person much older than you. 

17. A letter to a school in a foreign country. 

18. A letter to a school in another State. 

19. A letter written, in the name of your class, for publication in 

the school annual. 

20. A letter of congratulation. 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

Write your letter so that it will express a definite and practical 
proposal. Express your own individual opinion modestly and tact- 
fully. Use language that will thoroughly represent yourself. Try, 
in all ways possible, to avoid making your letter heavy, "eut-and- 
dried," conventional, and purely formal. 



THE SYMBOLIC STORY 

HI-BRASIL 

By EALPH DUEAND 

An English tr<weller, soldier and author, who is still young 
and who has "followed the Sea Maid" over every ocean. Like 
the English poet, John Masfield, he served for a time as a sailor 
before the mast. He has seen life intimately in various out-of- 
the-way places, such as the South Sea Islands, Central Africa, 
and the Arctic Begions. In the World War he performed 
patriotic duty in the trenches and on Intelligence Staffs. 

Hi-Brasil is a charming and fascinating story, a symbolic narrative 
that most artistically combines realism and fancy, and appeals to the 
unfulfilled longings that every reader possesses. 

What is Hi-Brasil? It is the " Never-Never-Land, " the land of 
dreams, the land of longings. In this story it is specifically the land 
where the lost ships go. Who is the Sea Maid? She is the Spirit of 
Adventure, the love of whom calls men ever restlessly on. In this story 
she is the Spirit of the Sea. How skilfully Mr. Durand describes her 
in sea-words: "With sea-blue eyes" and "Wind-blown" hair; her 
laugh "Like the ripple of a stream that runs over a pebbly beach"; 
her song ' ' Like the surge of breakers on a distant reef ' ' ; herself ' ' As 
old as the sea, and a little older than the hills. ' ' 

No one but a lover of the sea, and a lover also of bold enterprise and 
high deeds, could have written such a story, emphasizing as it does 
somewhat of the theme of Longfellow's Excelsior and Poe's Eldorado — 

' ' Over the mountains 

Of the moon, 
Down the Valley of the Shadow, 

Eide! Boldly ride! . . . 
If you seek for Eldorado ! ' ' 

"I've never sailed the Amazon, 
I've never reached Brazil; 
But the Don and Magdalena, 
They can go there when they will ! ' ' 

Pbcter Luscombe was the dullest man that ever audited an 
account. Once when his neighbor at a dinner-party, having 
heard that he was an authority on marine insurance, quoted 

300 



HI-BRASIL 301 

Longfellow about "the beauty and tbe mystery of tbe ships 
and the magic of the sea," Peter looked embarrassed and 
turned the conversation to the subject of charter-parties. 

His life was as carefully regulated as Big Ben. He caught 
the same train every morning, dined at the same hour every 
evening, indexed his private correspondence, and for recrea- 
tion read Price's "Calculations." On Saturday afternoons 
he played golf. 

One Summer a business matter took Peter to St. Mawes, and 
on his way there he met the Sea Maid. To get to St. Mawes 
he had to cross Falmouth Harbor by the public ferry. 

Though till then he had had no more direct personal ex- 
perience of the sea than can be obtained from the Promenade 
at Hove, Peter was so little interested in his surroimdings 
that he spent the first part of the ferry journey making notes 
of his personal expenditure since leaving London, including 
tips, on the last page of his pocket-diary. Midway across the 
harbor he chanced to look up and saw a yawl-rigged fishing- 
boat — subconsciously he noticed the name Maeldame painted 
on her bows — running before the wind in the direction of 
Falmouth Quay. An old, white-haired man, whose cheeks 
were the color of an Autumn leaf, was sitting amidships tend- 
ing the sheets, and at the tiller sat a girl — a girl with sea-blue 
eyes and untidy, wind-blown, dark-brown hair. 

She was bending forward, peering under the arched foot 
of the mainsail, when Peter first caught sight of her. Their 
eyes met ; the girl smiled — and Peter dropped his pocket- 
diary into the dirty water that washed about the ferryman's 
boots and stared after the Maeldune till he could no longer 
distinguish her among the other small craft in the harbor. 

When the ferry-boat reached St. Mawes and discharged her 
other passengers Peter remained in her, and on the return 
journey sat in the bows straining his eyes to pick out the 
Maeldune among the other fishing-boats. Falmouth Harbor 
is two and a half miles wide, and the ferryman refused to be 
hurried; but at last the quay came in sight, and Peter's heart 
leaped, for the Maeldune was lying at the steps, and the girl 
was still on board of her. As soon as the ferry-boat reached 



302 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

the steps Peter jumped ashore and faced the girl. Then he 
hesitated, embarrassed. He had nothing to say to her, or, 
rather, no excuse for speaking to her. "I — I — I saw you — as 
you came up the harbor," he faltered. 

But the girl showed no sign of embarrassment. She smiled 
at him again, and her smile was brighter than sunlight shin- 
ing through the curl of a breaking wave. 

"I'm just going out for a sail again," she said, "and I've 
room for a passenger. Old John has just gone to have a yarn 
with the sailmaker. Would you care to come ? ' ' 

Peter jumped onto the Maeldune's thwart, and the girl east 
off and hoisted the sail. "I'm afraid I don't know anything 
about sailing," said Peter. 

, The girl laughed, and her laugh sounded like the ripple of 
a stream that runs over a pebbly beach. 

"That doesn't matter," she said; "I can manage the old 
Maeldune single-handed." 

They beat down the harbor, rounded the Loze, and stood 
out in the direction of mid-channel. Peter was entirely happy. 
The wind was blowing fresh from the southwest, and the 
Maeldune danced lightly over the waves like a thing alive, 
her thwarts aslant and her lee-rail just clear of the water. 

"This is glorious," said Peter. "Do you know, this is the 
first time I have ever been on the sea. ' ' 

"It won't be the last," said the girl. 

For a long while neither spoke again. Peter did not want 
to talk. He was content to watch the Sea Maid as she sat at 
the tiller, looking toward the horizon with dreamy eyes and 
crooning to herself a wordless song that sounded like the 
surge of breakers on a distant reef. 

' ' What song is that ? " he asked after a long silence. 

"That is the song that Orpheus sang to the Argo when she 
lay on the stocks and all the strength of the heroes could not 
launch her. Then Orpheus struck his lyre and sang of the 
open sea and all the wonders that are beyond the farthest 
horizon, till the Argo so yearned to be afloat with a fair wind 
behind her that she spread her sails of her own accord and 
glided down the beach into the water." 



HI-BRASIL 303 

"I hadn't heard about it," said Peter. The story was so 
fantastically impossible that he supposed that the girl was 
chaffing him. 

"You are young, surely, to handle a boat by yourself," he 
said. "Don't think me rude. How old are you?" 

* ' As old as the sea, and a little older than the hills. ' ' 

Now Peter was sure that the girl was chaffing him. 

Neither spoke again. Occasionally the girl looked at him 
and smiled, and her smile was the most beautiful thing that 
Peter had ever known. Toward evening they turned and 
sailed back, right in the golden path of the sinking sun. 
Slowly the old town of Falmouth took shape; the houses be- 
came distinct, then the people on the quay. Peter sighed 
because he was coming back to the shore again, and because 
for the first time in his life he had tasted absolute happiness. 

Close to the quay the girl threw the boat up in the wind, 
ran forward and lowered the head-sails, and then ran back to 
the tiller. The Maeldune came gently up to the landing-stage. 
Peter jumped ashore and turned, expecting that the girl 
would follow, but she pushed off and began to hoist the head- 
sails again. 

"May I — may I see. you again?" said Peter, as the gap 
widened between the boat and the shore. 

The Sea Maid laughed. 

* * If you come to Hi-Brasil, ' ' she said. 

Peter walked slowly in the direction of Fore Street, then 
realized that he needed some more definite addrsss if he were 
to see the girl again. He hurried back to the landing-stage 
and looked eagerly for the Maeldune. She was nowhere in 
sight. 

' ' Did you see a little sailing-boat leave the steps about five 
minutes ago?" he asked a man who was lounging on the 
quay. "Which way did she go?" 

"What rig?" 

* ' I don 't know what you call it — one "big mast and one little 
one." 

"A yawl. There's been no yawls in here this afternoon." 

Peter inwardly cursed the man's stupidity and walked 



304 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

dejectedly away. He dreamed of the Sea Maid tliat night, 
and in the morning told himself that he was a fool. He had 
had an hour or so of happiness with a jolly girl who evidently 
did not wish to continue the acquaintance. Obviously, the 
sensible thing to do was to forget all about her. But he could 
not forget. Work became impossible. When he tried to 
write the laughing face of the Sea Maid danced before his 
eyes, and when clients talked to him he could not listen, for 
the song she had sung rang in his ears. He went back to 
Falmouth determined to see her again, and not till he reached 
the Cornish port did he realize the futility of his search. 
How was he to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of two 
people of whom he knew nothing more definite than that the 
man was white-haired and bronzed, and that the girl, when 
last seen, had worn a white jersey and a blue-serge skirt? 

A MONTH later he was an unwilling guest at a reception 
given by a famous London hostess. The rooms were packed 
with a well-dressed crowd who walked about rather aimlessly, 
talking on the stairs or listening to music in one or other of 
the reception-rooms. Suddenly Peter's heart stood still for 
a moment. Clear above the chatter he heard the Sea Girl's 
voice. He was standing at the head of the stairs and she was 
singing in one of the adjoining rooms, 

I've never sailed the Amazon, 
I've never reached Brazil; 
But the Don and Magdalena, 
They can go there when they will I 

Yes, weekly from Southampton, 
Great steamers, white and gold. 
Go rolling down to Rio 
(Roll down — roll down to Rio!), 
And I 'd like to roll to Rio 
Some day before I'm old! 

The doorway into the room from which he could hear the 
Sea Maid 's voice was so crowded with people that it was some 
minutes before Peter could edge his way into the room. By 
that time the song was over and the singer had gone. Peter 
made inquiries from a man standing near, and was told that 



HI-BRASIL 305 

she had left the room by another door. He sought out his 
hostess and asked her to introduce him to the lady who had 
sung ' ' Rolling down to Rio. ' ' But his hostess could not help 
him. She admitted reluctantly that she knew no more of the 
singer than that she was a professional entertainer engaged 
through the medium of a concert agent and that she had 
probably already left the house. Peter followed up the clue. 
Next morning, after inquiry from the agent, he rang the bell 
of a tiny flat in Maida Vale and stood with beating heart wait- 
ing for the door to open. 

Five minutes later he was out in the street again, bitterly 
disappointed. The lady he had seen was able to prove indis- 
putably that it was she who had sung * ' Rolling down to Rio, ' ' 
but she bore not the slightest resemblance to the Sea Maiden. 
To cover hi^ confusion and excuse his visit, Peter had engaged 
her to sing at a charity concert that he had invented on the 
spur of the moment, had insisted on paying her fee in ad- 
vance, and had left the flat, promising to send details of the 
place and date of the engagement by post. 

That evening, brooding in his lonely chambers, Peter, who 
till then had prided himself on believing nothing that is not 
based on the fundamental fact that two and two make four, 
became obsessed by the idea that the Sea Maid had sent him 
a spirit-message, using the unconscious professional enter- 
tainer as her medium. He tried to shake off the idea, telling 
himself that it was fantastic and ridiculous, but gradually it 
overmastered him. At eleven o'clock he rose from his chair, 
picked up the Times, and consulted the shipping advertise- 
ments. Five minutes later he rang for his man servant. 

"Buck up and pack, Higgins," he said. "I'm off to Brazil. 
You haven't too much time. Boat-train leaves Waterloo at 
midday to-morrow." 

"To Brazil, sir? Isn't that one of those foreign places?" 

"Yes. Why? What are you staring at? Why shouldn't 
I go to Brazil?" 

"Shall you want me, sir?" 

"You can come if you like." 



306 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

'*If it's all the same to you, sir, I'd rather — 



"Man alive! I thought you'd have jumped at the chance. 
Don't you want to go rolling down to Rio? Can't you feel 
the magic of it — even in the mere words ? Wouldn 't you like 
to see the armadillo dilloing in his armor ?" 

" I 'd better get on with the packing, sir. ' ' 

Higgins was convinced that his master had suddenly "gone 
balmy." 

Before sunset next evening Peter again saw the Sea Maid. 

The B. M. S. Maranhdo, outward bound for Rio de Janeiro, 
had just left St. Alban 's Head abeam when she passed a full- 
rigged ship bound down-channel so closely that Peter could 
see the men on board of her. Her tug had just left her and 
she was setting all sails. One by one the sails fluttered free 
and swelled to tlie soft breeze. Men were lying out on the 
upper topsail-yards casting loose the gaskets, and others on 
deck were running up the royals to the tune of a chantey, 

Sing a song of Ranzo, boys, 
Ranzo, boys, Ranzo. 

A crisp wave curled from her bows, a long wake of gleaming 
foam streamed astern of her, and she curtsied gracefully on 
the swell as if gravely saluting the larger, newer vessel. The 
Maranhdo passed under her stern, and as she passed Peter, 
looking down on her poop, saw the Sea Maid. And the Sea 
Maid saw him and waved her hand as the great mail-steamer 
surged past. 

"D'you know that vessel?" asked Peter eagerly of a ship's 
officer who was standing near him. 

"She's the Sea Sprite. Cleared from Southampton early 
this morning. Bound for Rio in ballast for hides." 

"Bound for Rio? Splendid!" said Peter. "How long 
will it take her to get there? I know some one on board." 

' ' A month — more or less. Who 's your pal ? ' ' 

"That girl that waved her hand to me." 

The ship 's officer focused his binoculars on the Sea Sprite. 

"There's no girl on her deck. Girls very seldom travel on. 
wind-jammers nowadays. Look for yourself." 



HI-BRASIL 307 

Peter took the glasses, and again saw the Sea Maid quite 
distinctly — but he did not care to argue about it. 

While waiting at Rio de Janeiro Peter took care to make 
friends with the port authorities, and arranged with them to 
let him have the first news that they had of the Sea Sprite. 

At last one morning found him in the customs launch, 
steaming out to the roadstead where the Sea Sprite, her 
anchor down, was stowing her canvas. As soon as the quar- 
antine doctor gave permission Peter scrambled up the ship's 
side and looked eagerly round her deck. The Sea Maid was 
not there. He could hardly contain himself until he could 
find an opportunity to ask for her. 

"I passed you in the Channel, Captain," he said, **and I 
saw a lady on your deck who is an old friend of mine. May I 
speak to her?" The captain shook his head. 

"Must have been some other ship," he said. "We've got 
no ladies aboard. ' ' 

Peter's heart sank, 

' * I suppose you dropped her at some port on the way. ' ' 

"We haven't smelled harbor mud since we left South- 
ampton Water," said the skipper. "You're making a mis- 
take, mister. Why, you look as if you thought I was lying. 
Take a look at the ship's articles, then, if you don't believe 
me. Stands to reason, doesn't it, that if I had a woman 
aboard her name would be on the articles?" 

Peter returned to the shore, bitterly disappointed and 
hardly convinced that he had been mistaken. He booked a 
passage on the next homeward-bound steamer. On the home- 
ward voyage he fell in love with an old lady, one of those 
women whose personality is so magnetic that they can draw 
the innermost secrets out of a young man's heart. One 
evening, when the sea was ablaze with splendor under the 
moon, he told her of the Sea Maid, and found it eased his 
longing to talk of her. The old lady understood. 

"You'll see your Sea Maid again," she said. "I'm sure of 
it. But perhaps not in this life." 

But Peter refused to give up hope of seeing the Sea Maid 
in the flesh. When he got back to London he .sought an inter- 



308 MODERN ESSAYS AND STOEIES 

view with one of the most eminent members of the Royal 
Geographical Society. 

"I want you to tell me where Hi-Brasil is," he said. "I 
want to go there. ' ' 

' ' Then you '11 have to wait till you die, ' ' said the geographer 
with a laugh. 

"What.-do you mean?" 

"Hi-Brasil is a purely mythical island, like St. Brendan's, 
The Fortunate Islands, Avalon, and Lyonnesse, that ancient 
and medieval geographers supposed to be somewhere out in 
the Atlantic. They've served their purpose. If nobody had 
ever believed in them it is probable that America would not 
have been discovered yet. The myth of Hi-Brasil 's existence 
took a long time to die. Venetian geographers of the Middle 
Ages supposed it to be somewhere near the Azores, and until 
1830 Purdy's chart of the Atlantic marked 'Brasil Rock 
(High)' in latitude fifty-one degrees ten minutes north, and 
longitude fifteen degrees fifty minutes west — that is, about 
two hundred miles westward of the Irish coast. ' ' 

"But isn't it possible that there really is such an island?" 
persisted Peter. "The sea is a big place, you know." 

"Absolutely impossible," said the geographer. "Why, the 
spot indicated by Purdy is right in the track of steamers 
going from England to Newfoundland. If you want to read 
about Hi-Brasil you must read old books, published before 
geography was an exact science." 

Though he knew it was useless Peter followed the advice 
given him and eagerly read every book he could find that 
had any bearing on the subject — Rubruquis, Hakluyt, Lin- 
schoten, and many others — and to his delight he found that 
his reading brought him nearer to "his Sea Maiden. After an 
evening spent in imagination exploring the coast of Vinland 
with Leif Ericsson, or rounding North Cape with Othere, or 
groping blindly in the unknown Atlantic with Malacello, he 
almost invariably dreamed that he and the Sea Maiden were 
once more sailing together in the little Maeldune. 

It was after reading, first in Longfellow and afterward in 



HI-BEASIL 309 

rakluyt, about Othere's voyage to the Northern Seas, that 
'eter saw an advertisement of a holiday cruise through the 
Norwegian fiords to Spitzbergen. He booked a passage, saw 
le bleak, storm-harried point that Othere was the first to 
ound, and, on his way home, saw the Sea Girl again. Just 
)uth of the Dogger Bank the tourist-steamer passed a disrep- 
table-looking tramp steamer. Half of her plates were 
ainted a crude red ; others were brown with rust ; the awning 
:anchions on her bridge were twisted and bent ; she had a 
eavy list to starboard, and she was staggering southward 
nder a heavy deck-cargo of timber. On the bridge, leaning 
gainst the tattered starboard-dodger, the Sea Maid stood 
ad waved her hand to him. Peter eagerly sought out a ship 's 
ficer. 

"Where's that steamer bound for?" he asked. 

* ' Goodness knows ! ' ' was the answer. ' ' South Wales, most 
kely, as she's carrying pit-props." 

Hope of seeing the Sea Girl in the flesh again returned, and 
eter wasted the next few weeks vainly searching all the 
outh Wales coal ports. He had given up the search, and was 
^turning to his much-neglected business when the South 
/"ales-London express stopped for a moment on the bridge 
ver the Wye near Newport. Peter looked idly out of the 
indow at the dirty river flowing sluggishly between banks 
I greasy mud. Then his heart leaped again. Lying em- 
jdded in the mud far below were the rotting remains of a 
Brelict barge, and on her deck were some ragged children 
auling lustily on a scrap of rope that they had fastened to 
fie of the barge's bollards and singing what, no doubt, they 
ipposed to be a chantey. Standing on the barge's rotting 
eck was the Sea Maid. This time she not only waved her 
and but called to him, "We are bound for the Spanish 
[ain." Peter leaned far out of the window of the railway- 
irriage. 

"Where can I find you?" he shouted. 

"In Hi-Brasil, " was the answer, and the train moved on. 

Peter was now convinced that the eminent geographer 
hom he had consulted as to the whereabouts of Hi-Brasil 



310 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

had not known what he was talking about. It must, he de- 
cided, be some little Cornish fishing village, too insignificant 
to be worth the great man's notice. 

In pursuit of this idea he went at once to Falmouth and 
began to make inquiries, first at the police stations and post- 
offices, and afterward among the fishermen. At Falmouth 
no one could answer his questions, till at last an old gray- 
beard told him that he'd heard of the place and believed it 
was somewhere farther west. At Penzance and Newlyn Peter 
could hear nothing, and he walked westward to Mousehole, 
determined that if he heard nothing there he would go on to 
the Scilly Islands. At Mousehole people laughed at him. One 
man to whom he spoke was so amused that he called out to a 
group of fishermen standing on the quay waiting for the tide 
to float their boats. 

"Gen'elman wants to know where Hi-Brasil is." 

' ' Then he '11 have to go farther west, ' ' said one. 

"To the Scillies?" asked Peter. 

"Aye, and farther than that." 

"A long way farther than that," said another. "It's an 
old wives' tale, mister. Stout ships that sail westward and 
never come back to port again have their last moorings at 
Hi-Brasil, so the saying goes. You ask Old John there. He's 
the only man that talks about Hi-Brasil, and he's daft." 

An old man whose broad back was bent with the weight of 
many years was hobbling toward him, and Peter knew that 
at last he was on the right track. The old fisherman who was 
coming down the quay was none other than the man he had 
seen sailing in the Maeldwne with the Sea Girl, 

"Hi-Brasil?" asked Old John. "What d'you want with 
Hi-Brasil?" 

"I want to go there." 

"Then I'm the man to take 'ee. But mark 'ee, mister, I 
can't bring 'ee back." 

"Never mind about that," said Peter, "You take me. "I'll 
pay you well." 

"Time enough to talk about payment when we get there," 
said the old man. "When do 'ee want to start?" 



HI-BKASIL 311 

"At once, if possible." 

* ' If 'ee really want to go us can start at half-flood. ' * 

Peter assured the old man that he was in earnest, and the 

latter hobbled away over the cobbles, promising to be back 

in an hour's time, 

"You're never going to sea with Old John, are you, 
mister?" said one of the fishermen anxiously. "He was a 
rare bold seaman in his day, but his day has passed this many 
a year. He was old when we were boys. Old John says he '11 
last as long as a deep-sea wind-jammer remains afloat. But 
he's daft. You oughtn't to listen to him. It's all old wives' 
foolishness about Hi-Brasil." 

But Peter would not be dissuaded, and an hour later, when 
the pilchard-boats jostled each other between the Mousehole 
pier-heads, and spread across Mount's Bay for sea-room, Peter 
and John, in a crazy old mackerel-boat, went with them. The 
setting sun gleamed on the brown sails of the pilchard fleet, 
and Peter drew a deep breath of delight. He knew that he 
would soon see the Sea Maid again. 

At midnight the pilchard fleet was a line of riding lights 
on the horizon behind them. "When the sun rose the Scillies 
lay to the north of them. Passing under the lofty Head of 
Peninnis, they exchanged hails with a fisherman of St. Mary's 
who was hauling his lobster-pots. 

"Going far?" asked the fisherman. 

* ' Aye, far enough, ' ' answered John. 

"Looks like it's coming on to blow from the east," said the 
fisherman. 

"Like enough," answered John, and they passed out of 
hearing. 

By midday a fresh wind was blowing. The mackerel-boat's 
faded, much-patched sails tugged at her mast, and she groaned 
as she leaped from the tops of the waves. 

"Afeard, be 'ee?" asked Old John. 

"Not I," said Peter. 

"The harder it blows, the quicker we'll get there," said 
John, and not another word was said. 



312 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

By night-time it was blowing a gale. A driving, following 
sea hustled and banged the boat from wave to wave, and the 
night fell so dark that Peter could not see the old man sitting 
motionless at the tiller, except when a wave broke in foam 
and formed a great white background behind him. Peter 
felt no fear. He knew with the certainty that admits of no 
argument that he was on his way at last to his beloved. 

The wind hummed in the boat's rigging with a droning 
note like that of the Sea Maid's song. The waves washed 
along her counter, flinging aboard stinging showers of spray 
that drenched Peter as he sat on the midship thwart. The 
jib flapped and tugged at its sheet when her stern rose on a 
wave and groaned with the strain as her bow lifted. Each 
time she strained streams of water gushed through her crazy 
seams. At last a fierce gust of wind drove her nose so deep 
into the water that it poured in a cascade over her bows, and 
then a great, curving comber broke over them. Peter was 
washed from his seat and jammed between the mast and the 
leech of the mainsail as the water rose over his head. 

When Peter recovered consciousness the sun was shining, 
the air was warm, the sea still, and the mackerel-boat, with 
Old John still at the tiller, was entering the mouth of a great 
land-locked harbor. Cliffs, gay with heather and golden 
gorse, sheltered it from the wind. The lazy, offshore breeze 
was fragrant with the smell of thyme. Shoals of fish played 
in the clear water, and on the far side a stream of fresh water 
rippled over golden sand. 

Peter rubbed his eyes and looked around him with amaze- 
ment. The harbor was thronged with shipping of every size, 
shape, and rig: yachts and smacks, schooners and ketches, 
tramp steamers and ocean-liners, barks and full-rigged ships, 
galleys and galleons, cogs and caracks, dromons and balingers, 
aphracts and cataphracts. 

"See that vessel?" said Old John, as they passed under the 
stern of a stoutly built brig. "That's Franklin's ship, the 
Terror — crushed in the ice, she was, off Beechey Island in the 
Arctic. And that little craft alongside of her is the Revenge. 



HI-BRASIL 313 

She sank in the Azores after fighting fifty-three Spaniards 
for a day and a night. Away over there is what they used to 
call a trireme. Cleared from the Port of Tyre, she did, when 
I was young, and foundered off Marazion, just where we left 
the pilchard fleet." 

But Peter was not listening. He was eagerly watching a 
yawl that was scudding toward them; for the yawl was the 
Maeldune, and under the arched foot of her mainsail the Sea 
Maid was smiling a greeting. 

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

1. Why did the author make his hero "the dullest man that ever 

audited an account"? 

2. Point out, and explain, all the classical and literary allusions. 

3. Why did the author make his story so largely realistic? 

4. What is the effect of the songs? 

5. How does the author make his story clear? 

6. Comment on the author's use of conversation. 

7. In what respects is the story poetic? 

8. What effect does Old John contribute to the story? 

9. What is the effect of the abrupt ending? 
10. What makes the story unusually artistic? 

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION 

1. Utopia 11. The World of Puck and 

2. Castles in Spain Oberon 

3. The Fountain of Youth 12. The Summit of Olympus 

4. Arcadia 13. Eldorado 

5. The Garden of the Hespe- 14. St. Brendan's Isle 

rides 15. Lyonesse 

6. Over the Mountains 16. The Fortunate Islands 

7. The Happy Valley 17. The Land of the Lotus 

8. The Land of Dreams 18. The Lost Atlantis 

9. The Isle of Avalon 19. At Camelot 

10. The Enchanted World 20. The Land of Heart's Delight 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING 

It is not easy to write, even with only a small degree of success, 
so happily suggestive a story as Hi-Brasil. Such a story is the 
product both of experience and of art. 



314 MODERN ESSAYS AND STORIES 

The best that you can do is to think of some longing that has 
possessed you, as the longing for the sea possessed the author of 
Hi-Brasil. Take some prosaic character, not usually moved by 
such longings as your own, and show him brought strongly under 
the influence of a great desire. Make your story so realistic that it 
will seem true, and so symbolic that it will be at once poetic and 
capable of conveying a strong idea. Do all in your power to make 
your story crystal-clear, strongly outlined, and effective in power. 



